Michael’s Picks

By Michael De Dora

* “Belief in obvious nonsense is not a harmless indulgence,” writes Barry Fagin. The second comment could not be any better: “The great thing about America is that we can go right on believing whatever we want, no matter how nonsensical …”

* The health insurance reform package passed earlier this year requires insurers to cover so-called alternative medicine, which has Derek Araujo asking: “where was the scientific community?”

* Fifty-three percent of Americans believe the U.S. Constitution establishes a Christian nation, but 66 percent say the document requires a clear separation of church and state, according to a new survey that illustrates Americans’ mixed views on church and state.

* Do your political leanings result from your social environment or your genetic predisposition? A new study suggests the answer is “both.”

* Nearly one in four sun-like stars should host an Earth-mass planet, argues a new paper in Science. Wired.com calls the finding “the first quantitative measurement of the frequency of planets of various masses in the galaxy.”

* A short feature piece in The New York Times on preachers in the NYC subway system. In summary: they preach, everyone else ignores.

* Ever wonder where anti-abortion protesters get those grisly photos? Slate.com has the answer.

The scientific study of religion, part IV

[I'm in Baltimore for a meeting on the scientific study of religion. What follows are just some random notes and observations from the sessions I actually attended, and are not necessarily representative of the entire meeting, given of course that I picked the topics that tickled my curiosity.]

This is the last session from the meeting on which I will report. It had a special format, which is actually typical at this type of conference. An author, in this case Elaine Ecklund, who wrote "Science vs. Religion: What Scientists Really Think" (Oxford Press), is exposed to a number of critics analyzing her book and then responds. I have not read the book, so what follows is entirely a reflection of what I heard during the session itself. The critics were Martin Makary (Johns Hopkins University), Nancy Nason-Clark (University of New Brunswick) and John Evans (University of California-San Diego).

The author started with a brief introduction to the book. It features ten social and natural scientists who were interviewed in depth and followed through their work, coupled with a broader survey of about 1,600 scientists at elite universities. The survey shows, for instance, that a surprising number of atheists consider themselves "spiritual." Anyway, I guess there is not much an author can say about a book in five minutes.

The first commenter was Makary, who said he grew up in a fundamentalist family where disputing the literal 7-day creation story amounted to rejecting all of Scripture. Some platitudes about science and religion "working hand in hand" followed, together with an apologia for Francis Collins as the quintessential example of a religious scientist. Maybe god worked his way through directed evolution, and after all, Galileo was not an atheist (at this point my blood started boiling, but never mind that).

Next was Nason-Clark, who actually broadly speaking addressed the book's content. After a self-promotional detour, she praised the interview approach around which the book is constructed. Clark then launched into personal anecdotes about scientists she knows personally. One of them was a strong atheist, who has become more tolerant of spirituality after a brush with cancer (though he remains an atheist). Another is a closet believer, afraid that his work will be discounted by colleagues because of his faith. Clark then continued with a long winded series of irrelevant observations about the arrogance of natural scientists and their considering the social sciences inferior and/or irrelevant.

Finally, we moved to Evans, who started out by mentioning a series of studies over decades showing that scientists are sharply less religious compared to the general public. Evans claimed that these studies are of dubious significance because they do not go in depth enough, unlike the book under consideration. Apparently the picture of the "elite" scientists emerging from the book is that most of them are not anti-religious a la Dawkins, but rather adopt one version or another of Gould's (in)famous non-overlapping magisteria. At least Evans provided a critique of the book, for instance saying that the author implicitly defines religion as non-science, and that she overestimates the degree of religiosity or spirituality of the scientists interviewed. Evans thinks that the non-religiosity of scientists does not derive from cognitive dissonance about different approaches to understand the world, but it is rather rooted in a different moral perspective, with scientists seeing religion as a social competitor. (I have no idea what he bases this on, and it certainly doesn't reflect my personal experience.)

What was interesting about this session was that - with the partial exception of Evans' remarks - it was intellectually vacuous and smelling terribly of political correctness. Scientists were chastised for being ignorant of religious diversity (though of course no data was presented to back up this sweeping claim), and for focusing too much on Protestantism, the major religion that actually does make epistemic claims about the world (apparently both author and panelists are not aware that this is a situation peculiar to the US, where Protestants are in fact a threat to public science education. This is still largely not the situation, and has not been the case historically, in Europe).

During the rebuttal, the author even went so far as to suggest that we need science "safe zones" on campus, where people feel comfortable challenging scientism, the view that science informs the entirety of one's worldview. (Readers of this blog know that I am no friend of scientism, but this discussion made me feel a little bit more sympathetic to Dawkins and co.)

One of the few interesting points raised (by the book's author) is the relationship between and perceived relative value of quantitative vs qualitative research. The social sciences are shifting toward what she called an over-quantification of their disciplines, in an effort to "play the game with the big boys" (i.e., the natural scientists). Here I do agree that there is room for both approaches, because certain questions and analyses do not lend themselves to quantitative treatment without losing much of what is interesting in the subject matter. But that's a discussion for another time, and has little to do with the question of scientists' attitude toward religion anyway.

Overall, it seems to me that the divide between the two cultures is unfortunately still very much alive and well. And while I usually criticize natural scientists for the part they play in it, in this case I didn't get much of a positive feeling from the other side either. Oh well, more work to be done.

The scientific study of religion, part III

[I'm in Baltimore for a meeting on the scientific study of religion. What follows are just some random notes and observations from the sessions I actually attended, and are not necessarily representative of the entire meeting, given of course that I picked the topics that tickled my curiosity.]

The first afternoon session I've attended was on religion and bias. The opening speaker was George Yancey from the University of North Texas, on "Religious bias among professors." Only 9% of scientists have no doubts about the existence of god, and 7% of members of the National Academy believe in a personal god. Of course these and similar numbers do not show bias, because there may well be self-selective factors operating (like more religious people feeling threatened by science, hence staying away from academic scientific careers). Controlled surveys across disciplines showed that most academics do not care about the religious affiliation of a prospective candidate, with the notable exception of evangelicals and fundamentalists, who admitted a significant bias against people with certain religious affiliations. Jews and atheists, but also Catholic and Muslims, were among the least biased. Mormons turned out somewhere in the middle. Bias induced by religion affiliation was stronger than that induced by political affiliation, with republicans being less biased than fundamentalists and evangelicals.

Next up: "Relationship between body mass index and engagement in a religious community," by Shanna Granstra of Baylor University. Two fundamental hypotheses: a) obese people have a positive relationship with their religious community; or b) obese people have a negative relationship with their religious community. (Well, if you add the null hypothesis you've covered the entire universe of logical possibilities.) Either way, previous research shows that whatever relationship there is, it is probably going to be gendered, as women tend to be more depressed and socially isolated if their BMI is very high. Results showed that obese people are more likely to be members of a church, but this was true only for women, not men. However, obese women were less likely to actually attend church.

The third talk was by Rod Ling of the University of Manchester-UK, on "Social distance and religion in Australia." This study focused on the Muslim population, which at last census comprised 1.7% of the total. Researchers asked people how socially close were they prepared to be to people from a number of religious denominations. The majority of responders said they would welcome a Muslim as a family member or a friend, but 16% felt that Muslims should be kept out of the country entirely. Non-religious were more tolerant toward Muslims than Anglicans and other Protestants. The author suggested that groups who expressed a desire for a greater social distance from Muslims were also historically more closely associated with Britain.

Finally, we have "Biases in juror decision making" by Jenny Reichert of the University of Nevada. The question: can jurors examine a court case while disregarding their preexisting ideas about satanism? Ideas about the defendant's religious belief are more difficult for jurors to disregard than race. Also, religious jurors tend to be harsher in judging someone who they consider a "deviant" from the point of view of their religion. (This type of research is conducted using mock jurors, not real trials, which is easier and allows the experimenter to control a variety of factors.) Jurors had a hard time discriminating between whether the person on trial had actually admitted to being a satanist, or whether this was simply alleged during the trial (which means that simply mentioning the word induces bias). Non-religious jurors had a more neutral view of satanists than did Catholics, Protestants and Muslims. More religious people were also more confident of the correctness of their verdict.

[Stay tuned for the last installment, a special session about attitudes of scientists about religion, based on a book addressing that issue...]

The scientific study of religion, part II

[I'm in Baltimore for a meeting on the scientific study of religion. What follows are just some random notes and observations from the sessions I actually attended, and are not necessarily representative of the entire meeting, given of course that I picked the topics that tickled my curiosity.]

This morning I attended a session about religion and the construction of gender identity. I mean, how can anyone resist a talk entitled "Hot for Jesus: religious language and the byproduct of Evangelical adolescent gender normalization"? (by Hilary Davidson, of the University of Notre Dame.) (It was hard to avoid noticing that the overwhelming majority of participants at the session were young women. Too bad more men are not interested in gender studies.) The study was conducted in an evangelical Protestant community in Indiana, by means of observation of community events and interviews with congregants. The "hot for Jesus" phrase comes from a pastor trying to sell t-shirts to his young congregants by telling them that the shirt is so hot that even Jesus will think you are hot. Apparently, this was said with no sense of irony at all, and the sexual undertones were very obvious. Throughout the rest of the sermon the word "hot" was repeated a whopping 42 times. The author suggests, more generally, a link between having an attractive body and being spiritually attractive to outsiders. The good news is that the pastor had it both ways: referring to the women in the group who were "average" or overweight, he told them that that will work to their advantage too, because they won't be readily "available" to others, which will make it easier for them to maintain their spiritual purity. Oh, also, if you are ugly, Jesus can still "use" you, because who knows, you may shut yourself in a lab and find the cure for cancer.

Next: "Masculinity and ministry: Evangelical and mainline seminarians think and talk about contemporary culture," by Stewart Hoover of the University of Colorado. The author is interested in how the alleged crisis of masculinity is supposed to be helped by guidance from religious institutions. It seems, therefore, that seminarians ought to be particularly aware of and prepared to deal with this "crisis." Apparently, when asked about their best example of an ideal model of masculinity in popular culture, church members by a large majority answered the movie "Braveheart." Wow. An interesting finding was that neither evangelical or not evangelical households seemed to find much inspiration from religion about models of masculinity, the difference being that the evangelicals were bothered by this evident lack of connection with their faith. Even seminarians apparently had not given much thought to the issue of masculinity, and actually found it an odd question, and upon reflection were disappointed that the church was not providing guidance in that respect.

The third talk of the session was by Kathleen Jenkins of the College of William and Mary, on "Warrior chicks: muscular feminism and aging bodies in a New Paradigm church." Apparently there is now an international movement, started by a Hollywood church, called "God Chicks" (take that, Skepchicks!), catering to young women. God Chicks promotes a type of female muscular Christianity, with emphasis on physical fitness as strengthening spiritual fitness. It really sounds like becoming a God Chick largely entails eating healthy and exercising, which I suppose can hardly be considered a bad idea. The speaker connected this to rejection of the concept of aging. Partly, this is accomplished by redefining everyone as "old" as long as there is a younger woman that can benefit from your help. Ironically, the rhetoric sounds a lot like third wave feminism.

The last talk was by Angela Broadus of the University of Nevada, on "Complex social identity of women in fundamentalist religions." The starting question was: why do women join patriarchal religions that deprive them of power compared to men? Common responses include denial of inequality or reframing of their situation. The author looked at women who are members of patriarchal congregations, but also hold positions of power at their job in the secular world. This was one of the few quantitative studies I've seen at this conference, involving almost 14,000 Australian women followed longitudinally over many years. Not surprisingly, the number of women who were both in patriarchal churches and held high managerial jobs was very low. Interestingly, however, these women reported higher satisfaction in life than other groups (the effect was not large, though it was statistically significant). Here is the kicker: further data slicing showed that the higher level of satisfaction was found only among women with low church attendance and low religiosity (despite being formally members of patriarchal denominations.)

[To be continued...]

The scientific study of religion

I'm in Baltimore for a somewhat strange experience: participating in a meeting on the scientific study of religion. Strange because until a few decades ago this sort of meeting would have been hard to conceive, and there simply wouldn't have been enough to say to fill three days of multiple parallel sessions, attended by hundreds of conferees. What follows are just some random notes and observations from the sessions I actually attended, and are not necessarily representative of the entire meeting, given of course that I picked the topics that tickled my curiosity.

As it turns out, the very first talk I heard, by Richard Cimino of Religion Watch, was about the significance of web activism by atheists. Cimino argued that online atheism has probably changed few minds, but it has been important to provide the atheist community with a clear and recognizable (if heterogenous) voice. Interestingly, the author focused on P.Z. Myers' blog and a couple of similar "iconoclastic" outlets. Believe it or not, Cimino then zeroed in on Myers' infamous (in my opinion) criticism of this blog and CFI's Michael De Dora (for which I chastised Myers), as an example of the rift between "in your face" and "accommodationist" atheists. Cimino also pointed out that a lot of atheist sites do not show much evidence of collaboration, citing a tendency by the Brights, for instance, not to crosslink. For the author, atheists face a difficulty in building consensus and forming a community. On the other hand, online secular activism is mostly grassroots and vigorous. The question is raised as to the future legitimacy of national organizations like CFI, which could thrive or dwindle depending on how they will deal with decentralized activism. (The author actually sees the recent departure of Paul Kurtz from CFI as part of a new strategy by that organization to adjust to the new public presence of atheists - though of course we also have to remember that people like P.Z. see CFI as accommodationist, and in their view not in sync with the grassroots.)

Victoria Blyde of the University of Tampa looked at on-campus and off-campus discrimination against religious and non-religious. The author reports more instances of discrimination against non-religious than religious students off-campus, while the reverse happens on-campus. She interpreted this difference in the context of a general theory that predicts more discrimination against whatever group happens to be in a minority, regardless of what identifies the minority.

Stacey Gutkowski of Arizona State gave a talk about the influence of secularism on international affairs, in particular in terms of the "secular bias" of Western democracies in their international policies, as perceived by Middle Eastern countries and with particular regard to the war on terror. Western framing of many non-Western societies as excessively religious carries the message of the latter societies being less developed, inferior, irrational, etc. According to the author, the secularization of British society during the 1960s led to a significant underestimation of religious terrorism within Iraq, which in turn contributed to the eventual collapse of the state (pre-Saddam Hussein). Another example is the current tendency of seeing the Taliban as a cultural instead of Islamic issue, with analysts being at a loss therefore to explain Taliban's easy recruitment of fighters from outside Afghanistan.

Lois Lee of the University of Cambridge examined so-called postsecularism and the "postsecular turn." One of the major ideas is that nonreligion is not neutral, but normative, and includes an anti-religion stance. The main study was conducted in London, UK. The author found three major types of nonreligion (but unfortunately gave no details at all about it, not even mentioning what the three types are!). In terms of anti-religion, this is usually targeted at discrete aspects of religion, not at religion in general. Interestingly, however, the specifics varied, sometimes reaching logical opposites, with some people objecting to religion as an intellectual commitment, but being okay with it as a cultural practice, and others taking the exact opposite stand. As for the separation between private and public sphere, the author found a tendency (though this was a qualitative study) for atheists not to advertise themselves as such in conversations, because they thought this would be equivalent to implying that most people present - being religious - are not that bright, which in British society is a clear faux pas.

[Stay tuned for more while the conference is ongoing...]

Massimo’s Picks

By Massimo Pigliucci

* I must admit that I changed my mind: NPR was wrong to fire Juan Williams on those grounds. Kudos to On the Media (an NPR show) for this treatment of the matter.

* The latest Rationally Speaking podcast: a whole hour of fun Q&A with Julia and yours truly.

* So, you think you want to be a college professor? Watch this and see if you won’t change your mind. (If you don’t, welcome aboard!)

* My latest column in Skeptical Inquirer: does humanity have a wired future? (Hint, methinks not.)

* We know we can’t trust “alternative” medicine. But what about science based medicine? Well...

* Neil deGrasse Tyson joins the ranks of scientists who say silly things about philosophy out of either ignorance or of an inflated view of science. Too bad, I otherwise like Neil. (The segment starts at 1:02:47.)

* Is pure altruism possible? What does that even mean?

* Jerry Coyne and his acolytes think I have a “vendetta” against him (since Jerry hasn’t done anything to me personally, they obviously have neglected to look up the meaning of the word “vendetta”). But the fact is that I’m not the only one to think that when he talks philosophy he talks gibberish.

* According to Roberth Reich America is becoming a plutocracy. According to me, it has been that way for at least a century and a half.

Podcast teaser: Steven Novella on the trouble with medicine

By Massimo Pigliucci

The next guest on the Rationally Speaking podcast will be our friend Steven Novella, host of The Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe podcast, as well as author of the Neurologica blog and co-editor of the Science-Based Medicine blog. He’s a busy guy, and we appreciate him taking the time to visit us here at Rationally Speaking.

Steven’s writings on skepticism often touch on the issue of evidence- (or, as he puts it, science-) based medicine, something that you might think is a redundant term (isn’t medicine supposed to be based on scientific research anyway?), but that turns out is anything but. Equally poignant are his critiques of a wide variety of quackery and so-called “alternative” medical practices and ideas, from homeopathy to vaccine denialism.

We will ask Steven about all of this, but also about more recent — and perhaps even more disturbing — claims to the effect that much of the so-called evidence-based medicine appears to be a lot more shaky than we would like to think. For instance, a November 2010 article in the Atlantic, penned by David H. Freedman, features the research of John Ioannidis, who specializes in meta-analyses of studies that purport to demonstrate all sorts of science-based medical claims, from the efficacy of aspirin to reduce the likelihood of heart attacks to that of hormone-replacement therapy for menopausal women.

Ioannidis’ research has shown that 40% of papers published in top medical journals are either wrong or make exaggerated claims (and those are the top journals!). This is a sobering statistic, and it apparently hasn’t surprised many people in the medical establishment, though you would think medical doctors and researches would be deeply troubled by it. Ioannidis went so far as to say: “I’m not sure that more than a very small percentage of medical research is ever likely to lead to major improvements in clinical outcomes and quality of life,” and — even more damning — “If we don’t tell the public about these problems, then we’re no better than nonscientists who falsely claim they can heal.” Ouch.

About Objectivism, part I: Metaphysics

By Massimo Pigliucci

There are two reasons I and my co-authors write this blog: on the one hand, we think that intellectual discourse needs all the help it can get, and we are trying to do our small part. On the other hand, we write so that we clarify to ourselves what we think on a variety of topics, at the same time opening our own ideas to critical challenge from our readers. The reality is of course a bit more messy and sometimes emotional, but that’s the idea.

In this spirit, it’s high time for me to tackle Objectivism, the philosophy of libertarian hero Ayn Rand. I have written occasionally about Rand, Objectivism and libertarianism on Rationally Speaking (e.g., here, here, here, here and here), but never in a systematic way. I intend to do so in a series of posts that will comment on four major aspects of Objectivism: its metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, and politics.

Before we get started, a few caveats. First and foremost, obviously this isn’t going to be a scholarly analysis of Objectivism. There are plenty of those around, and a good start is provided by the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on Ayn Rand, which comes with an extensive set of references and additional resources. (If you’d like a more accessible non scholarly introduction, also with a good number of external references, check the Wiki entry instead.)

Second, I have to admit at the onset to a strong antipathy for Rand and her followers. This is nothing personal, as I obviously never met Rand (she died in ’82, when I was about to enter college in Rome), and I have several friends who are libertarians and/or objectivists. (I know, this sounds like one of those “and some of my best friends are Jewish / Black / Gay,” but it’s true.) Rather, my antipathy stems from a deep-seated rejection of the Randian universe based on fundamental philosophical and ethical incompatibilities. Nonetheless, I will point out where I do agree with Rand, and I will attempt the most charitable interpretation of Objectivism I can muster.

My thesis in what follows is that Rand’s ideas are either nothing new within the Western philosophical canon (and no, her alleged ignorance of other people’s ideas is no excuse to elevate her to the status of independent philosopher — she lived in Los Angeles and New York City, for crying out loud, where there are perfectly good public library systems), or are profoundly misguided. (Hmm, come to think of it, her principles would have prevented her from entering a public library, I suppose, since it is an example of the government stealing money from its citizens to further one of those concepts that were anathema to Rand: public education.) Maybe that’s why so many academic philosophers think of books like Atlas Shrugged as “sophomoric,” “preachy,” and “unoriginal.” But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Okay, let’s get started then. From what I understand, the central tenets of Objectivism are as follows:

1) Reality exists independently of human (or any other) consciousness.

2) Humans have access to that reality through sense perception.

3) Objective knowledge is possible through perception, induction and deduction.

4) The moral purpose of life is to pursue one’s own happiness through something called rational self-interest.

5) The only social system consistent with Objectivist principles is complete laissez-faire capitalism.

6) The role of art is to allow humans to access metaphysical ideas in physical form via selective reproduction of reality.

Clearly (1) is an issue concerning metaphysics, (2) and (3) regard epistemology, (4) and (5) are matters of ethics, and (6) is a question of aesthetics. The rest of this post will therefore concern only point (1) above.

First off, what I agree with in Objectivist metaphysics: the clear rejection of non-natural and non-physical realms or entities. Rand was an atheist, and so am I, though our reasons for being so are quite different. As a corollary, both Rand and I reject any form of idealism in metaphysics.

Rand begins her metaphysics by articulating three axioms: consciousness, existence, and identity. She writes in Atlas Shrugged that “An axiom is a proposition that defeats its opponents by the fact that they have to accept it and use it in the process of any attempt to deny it.” Wrong. An axiom is an assumption from which the discussion begins. It can (and should) be examined and/or challenged if the deductive consequences of the axiom(s) entail logical contradictions or any other rationally unacceptable conclusions. This is the way it works in math, logic, and philosophy.

Objectivist metaphysics states both that “existence exists” and that “existence is identity.” The first one can be understood in three ways: a) it is a truism based on an obviously circular proposition (could existence not exist? How could we know it?); b) it is uninformative inelegant grammar (“existence” is a noun, “exists” is a predicate, so this is like saying that “redness is red”); or c) perhaps more charitably, it is a simple ontological declaration that something exists. In the latter case, no philosopher — or anyone with a minimum of commonsense — has ever claimed otherwise. The trick, usually, is to elaborate on what one might mean by “existence.”

What about the identity thing? Here Rand simply restates the well known principle of identity, which goes back to Aristotle: “A leaf ... cannot be all red and green at the same time, it cannot freeze and burn at the same time. A is A.” Indeed, A is A, Logic 101.

Things get a bit more interesting when we get to the third axiom, the one concerning consciousness. According to Leonard Peikoff’s Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand, “consciousness [is] the faculty of perceiving that which exists.” Well, no, that would be sensorial perception, which we share with the other animals. Consciousness is best thought of as a particular type of internal perception, the paying attention to our own mental states, analogous to what cognitive scientists call proprioception, the ability our brain has to monitor internal physical states.

Rand believed in the primacy of existence, as opposed to the primacy of consciousness. The latter, of course, had been a staple of certain traditions in philosophy, including Descartes and the general doctrine of Idealism (think George Berkeley, for instance). However, she was beaten to the idea of the primacy of existence by a number of philosophers, most importantly Jean-Paul Sartre. (Indeed, it is interesting that Rand’s original choice of name for her philosophy was Existentialism, which alas was already taken.) Of course scientists ever since Darwin had already agreed that existence must precede consciousness, or we would have a rather bizarre sequence of evolutionary phenomena with which to reckon.

Rand claimed that “to be conscious is to be conscious of something” and that consequently the very existence of consciousness implies the existence of something else (that of which we are conscious). That would have shown Descartes, but alas the conclusion simply doesn’t follow. It is perfectly conceivable that something could be conscious only of its internal states (though of course natural selection would have a problem with the viability of such an entity). In fact, we can conduct experiments with subjects in complete sensorial deprivation, and they turn out to be conscious only of their own mental states (it is apparently a pretty unpleasant situation, where the brain begins to make up horrific and very much life-like visions of things that are not there, presumably just to keep itself entertained).

Finally, Rand’s metaphysics includes a theory of causation — something that has escaped a lot of serious philosophers since Hume pointed out that when we talk of causality it has hard to see what else we might mean other than that event A reliably follows event B in time. Causation for Rand is “the law of identity applied to action.” That sounds bizarre, since logic (of which the law of identity is a pillar) hardly compels physical action. Apparently, she meant that only “entities” can act, and that the nature of the action depends on the specific nature of the entity that engages in such action. Again, this is rather obscure, but it seems both a truism and a peculiarly limited theory of causality: what are we to make of causality when it does not refer to an “entity”? And what of mental causation?

Next time: Objectivist epistemology. Stay tuned.

Michael’s Picks

By Michael De Dora

* On the heels of a New York Times report on the Council for Secular Humanism’s recent conference, interfaith activist Christopher Delos Stedman says atheists shouldn’t ponder, “how pushy should we be?” but rather, “what are we pushing for?”

* During that CSH conference, Chris Mooney, P.Z. Myers, and Jennifer Michael Hecht (who was supposed to moderate but was essentially a third voice) sat down for a conversation about “accomodationism” and “confrontationalism” for the podcast Point of Inquiry. 

* Frans de Waal writes about how primate behavior sheds light on the origins of our sense of right and wrong. For a longer take on this, I highly recommend the book Primates and Philosophers: How Morality Evolved.

* In his latest essay, Christopher Hitchens wonders why any normal person would ever want to run for public office in America.

* A perfect storm of a different sort than the fantastic book (and decent movie): more and more wealth in fewer and fewer hands, plus secret campaign donations. Robert Reich argues America is becoming a plutocracy. My response: becoming?

* On Oct. 7 the Center for Inquiry in New York City – you know, where I am executive director – hosted Sam Harris for a public lecture about his new book, The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values. Full video, including the talk and Q&A, is now available. 

* And lastly, with Election Day coming, the Brennan Center’s Web site is a great resource for any voting information you might need.

Julia's Picks

By Julia Galef

* Trolleyology: a discussion of variants on the famous “trolley problem” in moral philosophy, and how they help us tease out the principles underlying our moral intuitions.

* Finally, there’s a name for this phenomenon I loathe so much in movies and TV: Straw Vulcan.

* Another way the minds of industrialized Westerners work differently than the rest of the world.

* The terrible consequences of playing Dungeons & Dragons… brought to you by everyone’s favorite fundamentalist cartoonist, Jack Chick.

* The animated history of evolution, by an artist who uses an entire city as his canvas.

* Common misconceptions about everything from food to history – Wikipedia sets us straight.

Podcast teaser: Joshua Knobe on experimental philosophy

By Massimo Pigliucci

A forthcoming episode of the Rationally Speaking podcast will feature an interview that Julia and I will be conducting with Joshua Knobe, of Yale University. Joshua is a philosopher interested in cognitive science, so interested, in fact, that he has contributed to establishing a whole new branch of inquiry known as experimental philosophy — and he plausibly claims that the name is not actually an oxymoron!

I have written before on Rationally Speaking about experimental philosophy, and Joshua has just penned an article about it for the New York Times. The idea is summarized in this way on one of the major web sites devoted to the enterprise (links above):

“Experimental philosophy, called x-phi for short, is a new philosophical movement that supplements the traditional tools of analytic philosophy with the scientific methods of cognitive science. So experimental philosophers actually go out and run systematic experiments aimed at understanding how people ordinarily think about the issues at the foundation of the philosophical discussion.”

We welcome questions from readers to pose to Joshua during the podcast. Incidentally, since so many of you have requested it, the RS podcast will from now on be 45 minutes long, so that Julia and I can get a bit more in depth on the many juicy topics we take on every other week.

Secularism and Methodological Naturalism

By Michael De Dora

Last week, I had the good fortune of spending a couple days giving talks in Massachusetts, a beautiful state that is particularly gorgeous this time of the year. On Tuesday, I spoke about secularism to a humanist group in Worcester. On Wednesday, I participated in a panel discussion on religion at Tufts University, hosted by a student freethought group.

The event in Worcester marked the first time I was giving that particular talk, which was based on my Master’s thesis. I proposed that instead of focusing on religion, secularists ought to promote inclusive, robust, yet critical and naturalistic discussion on moral beliefs and values, within both our social and political discourse. I then addressed how we might go about doing that. This drew a good deal of constructive response – concerning the consistency of my message, points that need polishing, implications of my ideas, and their practical application. Much of this feedback was sorely needed, and will be incorporated into a revised and improved lecture. Yet one suggestion reminded me of an idea I had months ago, but never fleshed out: about the methodology of secularism as it might relate to a distinction in philosophy of science.

During the final part of my presentation, I proposed something called a public peer review. The public peer review is based on an analogy with academic peer review. In its simplest and broadest senses, academic peer review features learned people in a field continually refereeing each other’s work. This process encompasses three basic steps: (1) you conduct research and analyze its results; (2) you submit your ideas to others in the field; and (3) you receive feedback, get rejected, accepted, rethink and/or respond.

Put into the framework of public discourse, and with the focus on morality, an analogous public peer review would be the process through which people continually test their moral ideas against a community of others, and the ideas of others as well. The equivalent three steps are: (1) contemplate your moral views; (2) enter them into public debate; (3) receive feedback, rethink and/or respond. There is much more to this idea – it was an entire chapter in my thesis – but you get the point: I’m taking a cue from science and rational thought and applying it to public discourse. This is where the feedback I received in Worcester comes back into the picture. One fellow approached me and said, “I would be interested to see you apply more scientific ideas to discourse.”

I quickly remembered a thought that popped into my head when reading a seminal paper by philosopher of science Barbara Forrest, on the differences and connections between philosophical naturalism and methodological naturalism. In that paper, Forrest starts with a definition of methodological naturalism offered by philosopher Paul Kurtz:

“[Methodological] naturalism is committed to a methodological principle within the context of scientific inquiry; i.e., all hypotheses and events are to be explained and tested by reference to natural causes and events. To introduce a supernatural or transcendental cause within science is to depart from naturalistic explanations. On this ground, to invoke an intelligent designer or creator is inadmissible.”

Forrest continues in her own words:

“Methodological naturalism and philosophical naturalism are distinguished by the fact that methodological naturalism is an epistemology as well as a procedural protocol, while philosophical naturalism is a metaphysical position. … Methodological naturalism does exclude the supernatural as an explanatory principle because it is unknowable by means of scientific inquiry, whereas philosophical naturalism, both by definition and because of the methodological and epistemological inaccessibility of the supernatural, excludes the latter from its ontological scheme.”

In short, methodological naturalism means that for one to do science, one must look for empirical evidence and natural explanations, and not rely on faith and the supernatural. The point is that a scientist need not be without faith or belief in the supernatural whatsoever. Philosophical naturalism is the stronger view that nature is all there is (I subscribe to this). Yet one need not commit to this – to atheism or any other sort of nonbelief – to do science.

My immediate thought was this: put into the context of morality, religion, and political life, philosophical naturalism is to atheism as methodological naturalism is to secularism.

Philosophical naturalism, and hence atheism, are metaphysical stances or positions about the world. But methodological naturalism and secularism are more like “procedural protocols,” to epistemological views of the process. Just as one can believe in some form of the supernatural or God and do science, one could believe in some form of the supernatural or God and be a secularist. He or she just needs to deal with questions of morality and law not by recourse to faith or the supernatural, but through the use of natural reasons and evidence.

To illustrate the similarities in approach between methodological naturalism and secularism, consider the debate over abortion, specifically as it relates to the soul. Philosophical naturalism and atheism represent a lack of belief in such a religious and metaphysical concept. They posit that the soul almost certainly does not exist, and perhaps even offer reasons why it doesn't. However, methodological naturalism and secularism are less concerned with the soul’s existence, and more concerned with having people make arguments on the issue based on real world evidence. That is, one can believe in the soul, but he or she cannot point to that argument in the debate over abortion and expect it to carry the day. He or she must provide reasons we can all grasp and critically assess.

To be sure, there are differences between methodological naturalism and secularism. Methodological naturalism excludes the supernatural because it is unknowable by means of scientific inquiry. Secularism excludes the supernatural because in a pluralistic and democratic society, people cannot access others’ faiths. Reliable, shared knowledge and values in the political realm can only come from the natural world. Methodological naturalism and secularism are also supported by distinctive reasons, and address different spheres of concern. Methodological naturalism addresses empirical evidence and the rules of science, while secularism is about philosophical debate relating to religion, morality, and political life. But these do not invalidate the comparison, for my point is that the two seem to call for a similar procedure in reasoning and deliberating.

Illustrating the secular approach through methodological naturalism might allow us a deeper and richer understanding of the nature of secularism, and our engagement in social and political discourse. This has spawned a number of ideas in my mind related to, but broader than, the talk I gave in Worcester. But I suppose I should await your response before getting to work on that.

Massimo’s Picks

By Massimo Pigliucci

* Americans think that we are fighting a losing war in Afghanistan, but apparently that’s not really that important.

* PZ Myers continues his disagreement with Jerry Coyne, claiming that no scientific evidence for gods can ever be produced. Yup.

* Philosophy Talk on what it means to have a digital self. And check out this hilarious song about dating avatars...

* Scientific American publishes a negative review of Sam Harris’ new book.

* You thought existentialism was just abut Sartre and Nausea? Think again.

* For all the talk about The Social Network, Robert Wright claims that Mark Zuckerberg is a non-evil non-genius. Perhaps, but that wouldn’t have made for a good movie, no?

* The latest Rationally Speaking podcast features guest Brendan Nyhan talking about why false beliefs just refuse to die.

* Insightful piece by philosopher David Sosa on the concept of happiness. Find out why you may actually be wrong about whether you are happy or not.

Tunç’s Picks

By Tunç Iyriboz

* Debunking neurosexism: We may be all from Earth, not Mars or Venus. Tune in to Skeptically Speaking Radio for an interview with Dr. Cordelia Fine on her book “Delusions of Gender: How Our Minds, Society, and Neurosexism Create Difference.”

* Moment of “singularity” for shogi? 

* U.S. Supreme Court to consider vaccine case. 

* Food for vegetarian thought: Stefano Mancuso TED talk on the roots of plant intelligence. Where is the demarcation line? 

* Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article on Fatalism recently revised. No so much the solutions.

* Somebody apparently had to stand up for Paladino. HuffPo on Coulter’s Fox News defense of Paladino’s recent not-so-politically-smart statement on “equal validity.”

* How’s your self-esteem level today? Or should I ask, what’s your vagal tone? A recent article attempts to establish an empirical link. Science of human flourishing? For the record, my grandmother displayed no heterophenomenological evidence of self-esteem throughout her life. She lived to be 96, remaining physically and mentally sound and active for most of it. I seem to be determined to follow suit.

* Hitch’s Tumortown in Vanity Fair, where you “sometimes feel you may expire from sheer advice.” Included in the unsolicited advice he (so far) turns down, a couple of chilling transhumanistic ones, relevant to recent Rationally Speaking posts and comments.

Mysticism and logic

By Massimo Pigliucci

Recently I started a new hobby: collecting relatively rare philosophy books. I figured that there would be some sense of poetry in having an apartment where there are absolutely no books (they all reside on my iPad) except for a few copies of my own and selected philosophical classics smelling of old paper. (I’m not talking about really expensive editions, obviously, not on my public university professor salary anyway.)

The first entry in my collection is a first edition (1918) of Bertrand Russell’s Mysticism and Logic, which is appropriate considering both the influence that Russell has had on me since I was in high school (when I read Why I Am Not a Christian) and because of the topic itself — the difference between rational argument and mystical intuitions.

I want to focus on Russell’s analysis of four characteristics of mystical “insights,” which I think still today provide a fine analysis of the phenomenon — and yes, the irony of logically analyzing an inherently non-logical process has not escaped me. Here is an extensive quotation from Russell, to which I will then add my own thoughts:

“The first and most direct outcome of the moment of illumination [the mystical insight] is belief in the possibility of a way of knowledge which may be called revelation or insight or intuition, as contrasted with sense, reason, and analysis, which are regarded as blind guides leading to the morass of illusion... The second characteristic of mysticism is its belief in unity, and its refusal to admit opposition or division anywhere ... A third mark of almost all mystical metaphysics is the denial of the reality of time. This is an outcome of the denial of division ... The last of the doctrines of mysticism which we have to consider is its belief that all evil is mere appearance, an illusion produced by the divisions and oppositions of the analytic intellect.”

Russell of course is not maintaining that all mystical systems share these four properties, but that very often these or some variations thereof constitute core aspects of the mystical belief, which strikes me as about right. There are two ways of reconstructing what a mystical experience is, one charitable and — I will argue — incorrect, the other one, well...

In one sense, we can think of mystical insights as a form of intuition. Notice that Russell himself uses that word, together with “insight” and “revelation.” The three, however, are clearly not synonymous. As it turns out modern cognitive science has been investigating how intuition works, and we have learned that there doesn’t seem to be a general faculty of intuition (as in “women’s intuition,” to use a loaded and politically charged example). Rather, intuition is a domain-specific type of (subconscious) information processing by the brain, processing that yields insights that are both fallible and limited to that domain.

The best studied case, though by no means the only one, is that of intuitions about the game of chess (for other examples, see the chapter on expertise in Nonsense on Stilts). Expert players, unlike novices (and many chess playing computer programs), do not actually explicitly work out all the possible ramifications of a given move because they have intuitions — rooted in their experience — about which moves are going to work out better given a particular configuration on the board. Chess masters’ intuitions are even better than expert players’, and in fact cognitive scientists have figured out how many thousands of hours of play are required to move from novice to expert to master (assuming one has the aptitude, of course, just playing doesn’t do it). Turns out that to become an expert in a particular field takes a number of hours that is roughly equivalent to those required to obtain a PhD in an academic field.

Of course, even though an expert’s intuitions about a particular domain are far more reliable than a non-expert’s considered opinion, they are not infallible. Which is why in academic fields from science to philosophy, experts’ insights are then carefully scrutinized by means of analytical dissection and comparison with the empirical evidence, where the latter plays a useful role. In other words, even in the case of reliable intuitions, the best course of action is to filter the resulting insights through rational, explicit analysis (if one has the time and resources).

But none of this can possibly account for mystical experiences. Not only do mystics steadfastly refuse to acknowledge any useful role for logical analysis (indeed, they tend to disdain the very idea), mystical insights simply cannot be a type of intuition because they refer to domains of (alleged) knowledge of which nobody actually has any cumulative experience. Since what generates increasingly reliable intuitions is precisely a long history of cumulative experience in a given field, mystics must be resorting to something else for their insights.

That something else is captured by the remaining word used by Russell to characterize the difference between mysticism and logic: revelation. Indeed, mystics would have us believe that they (and only they) have access to a deeper level of reality, a type of access that is not available to most of us (though in some mystical traditions one can acquire it through practices such as certain types of meditation).

But that being the case, what is this special access based on? Where does the revelation come from? Here again there are basically two possibilities: either the revelation comes from a supernatural being (that is the meaning of revelation in religious traditions) or it is made possible by the existence of a special sense that mystics have and the rest of us don’t (or that mystics have learned to use and the rest of us haven’t).

The first possibility (divine revelation) of course begs the question of the existence of divinities to begin with, and readers of this blog know exactly what I think of supernaturalism. The second possibility begs the question in a different way: since there is no externally verifiable evidence of either a mystical realm or of mystical insight, how do we know that these people aren’t either frauds or — more likely — simply deluded? Unlike intuition, mystical revelation cannot be subjected to the scrutiny of logical analysis and empirical investigation; and unlike the case of intuition as studied in cognitive science, we have no reason to believe that there even is anything like mystical revelation as a way of knowing things.

I will not carry the argument as far as concluding that there is no mystical realm, because proving that sort of negative is outside the scope of rational discourse. But this isn’t a shortcoming of rational discourse, it is a shortcoming of mystical discourse (if it is a type of discourse at all). It always amazes me how many people, when faced with extraordinary claims about “quantum mysticism” (a la Deepak Chopra), parallel realities, underlying unity of the cosmos, and so on, fail to ask the simple question: “This is very interesting, but how do you know?”

It can be answered that asking for evidence or reasons backing up mystical insights is missing the point entirely. Perhaps, but then what is the point? If self-professed mystics are allowed to make whatever claims they wish, without constraints imposed by reason or evidence, then why on earth would anyone believe them? The answer, of course, is because it makes some people feel good to think they “understand” a reality beyond the mundane, so much the better if they can stick it to self-important rational intellectuals such as yours truly. But here is Russell on feeling sure about things for which there is no reason or evidence: “The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt.” Amen.

Massimo’s Picks

By Massimo Pigliucci

* PZ Myers seems to agree that there cannot be any scientifically meaningful “evidence” for gods because the concept is so ill-defined. I agree, but Jerry Coyne (and Richard Dawkins, and Vick Stenger) should be pissed...

* A new book explores the science and philosophy of procrastination. [Here I could have put the obvious joke about postponing reading the book...]

* Why Larry Summers epitomizes the subversion of economics.

* The Hegelian argument against free markets.

* Why is Glenn Beck obsessed with Hitler, anyway?

* Philosopher Anthony Appiah writes a critical review of Sam Harris’ new book.

* Philosophy Talk on the terror of death.

* The revolution will not come via Twitter, and for good reasons.

* Why do people have problems with affirmative action but not with “legacy” programs at elite and not-so elite universities?

The limits of reasonable discourse

By Massimo Pigliucci

From time to time I have a recurring discussion with my friend Benny, the producer of the Rationally Speaking podcast. He feels that two topics should be off the table when it comes to rational discourse, be that on the podcast, this blog, or at the New York City Skeptics meetups he and I co-host: politics and ethics.

Benny reckons that when it comes to discussions about politics or ethics too often reasonable people can produce arguments that are both rational and at odds with each other. This, I take his argument to be, suggests that reason cannot settle these matters. Since the same topics (especially politics: I am an unabashed progressive liberal, he is one of the few reasonable libertarians I know) also lend themselves to high emotional reactions, it is best to simply set them aside. It’s Benny’s version of the demarcation problem for skeptics.

I disagree, and for a couple of reasons. Let me first briefly consider the obvious one: the role of emotions in these discussions. Of course people get emotional when they talk about politics and ethics (two topics that, incidentally, are far from being logically independent from each other). People care, so their hormones flow. It is hard to imagine the same kind of emotional involvement when one is discussing string theory or the Goldbach conjecture (though you’d be surprised by how some scientists or mathematicians get flushed if their pet theory is attacked!). But the fact that a topic of conversation generates passion is certainly no reason to think that rational discourse cannot take place. “Truth springs from argument amongst friends” and all that.

My second point is less obvious. Underlying Benny’s objection to rational discussions of politics and ethics seems to be the idea that logic and rationality must lead to one right answer, and that if one rejects that answer one is simply being irrational. Let’s set aside for a moment the obvious fact that people do, in fact, reject rational conclusions all the time, simply because they don’t like them, or they don’t fit well with their parochial view of the world (think creationists, for instance). It is demonstrably not the case that there is always one logical answer to every question that can be approached logically.

Consider the hypothetical landscape in the figure accompanying this post. That particular graph is meant to illustrate the idea of multiple adaptive peaks in genotypic space, with natural selection pushing a population of organisms up the closest available peak (high fitness) and away from any valley (low fitness). Similar situations occur in computer science, mathematics, economics, and — I maintain — in rational discourse more generally.

Think of every peak as a particular, viable solution to whatever the problem happens to be (survival in a given environment, efficiency of a computational algorithm, or the search for a good political or ethical system). In the graphic example above, there are three peaks: one is taller, the other two are of about equal height. The taller peak represents the optimal solution across the landscape, while the other two stand for suboptimal but viable solutions. If we were talking about politics or ethics, this would correspond to saying that one political or ethical system is in fact “best” (under whatever criteria one is using) and therefore rational, while two more are also rational, but not quite as good. So reasonable people could make an argument for one or the other, or the third, of the proposed solutions, particularly when practical considerations may exclude, or make less likely, the implementation of the optimal solution represented by the highest peak.

Moreover, in many cases there may not even be a highest peak, but a number of alternative strategies that achieve more or less equal results. Rational people, then, could defend any or all of those strategies without necessarily being able to settle on a particular one as the obviously best choice. This would not mean that there was no point in having a rational discussion about it, because reason would still be helpful to avoid the many valleys or flat parts of the landscape, those that do not correspond to sufficiently viable solutions to whatever problem is at hand.

The analogy can be pushed a bit further, hopefully before reaching a breaking point. In biology it is a well known fact that if the environment in which evolution takes place changes, so does the adaptive landscape: you move from air to land, say, and those formerly really useful wings you got begin to look more like a hindrance than an advantage (think penguins). Similarly in politics and ethics: the “environment” here may be represented by the facts on the ground for a particular society, or even reflect certain meta-assumptions about what sort of solutions are acceptable (e.g., I can see the logic of libertarianism, but my parameter space for possible solutions is defined by certain concepts of fairness and justice that clash with the libertarian ethos).

Even those meta-assumptions, of course, can in turn be the subject of rational discussions — just like the axioms of mathematical theorems can themselves be justified or rejected by the community of mathematicians depending on a range of criteria, including how useful any given axioms are when deployed as the starting point for specific theorems.

What about science, some like Sam Harris might ask? Since science is based on empirical facts, can it not avoid this sort of problem, and actually settle us on a solution, even for political and ethical problems? I wrote what I think of Harris’ idea that ethical issues can be settled by science elsewhere. But even Harris has been talking about a “landscape” of moral solutions to our problems, indeed invoking the very same metaphor I have employed here.

Moreover, science itself suffers from an analogous problem, known in philosophy of science as the underdetermination of theory by the data. The idea is that sometimes (some philosopher would claim always), empirical data is simply insufficient to discriminate between two or more viable theories. This doesn’t mean one cannot talk rationally about those theories. For one thing, one can logically eliminate a lot of other theories that are not compatible with the data. Moreover, scientists often invoke extra-empirical (and hence, strictly speaking, not scientific) criteria for theory choice, such as simplicity, or aesthetic appeal. The point is, not even science is immune from the problem of multiple reasonable solutions to a given problem — but that certainly hasn’t stopped scientists from claiming that their enterprise is eminently rational, and rightly so.

The metaphor of a landscape in logical space therefore argues that reasonable people can rationally disagree about issues in science, skepticism, economics, politics and ethics. That does not mean that rational discussions of these topics are fruitless, because they help the participants (if they are in good faith) to delineate the areas of the landscape where no peak can be found, and also forces them to examine more closely why they insist on climbing one particular peak given that there are several available for exploration. As for the emotional part, well, as David Hume famously put it: “It is not contrary to reason to prefer the destruction of the whole world to the scratching of my finger.” It is because I care about the world that I’d rather see my finger scratched than the world to end.