Salon.com Article on "The New Atheists"

[Solitaire]

Has anyone else read this article? I'm interested in other thoughts.

I find myself puzzling over the lower half of page three.

Many cognitive scientists and brain scientists are saying the same thing. They're almost in despair at times about whether we'll ever be able to jump from the third-person discourse of science to the first-person discourse of subjective consciousness.

Most modern science has acted as though subjectivity and consciousness are not part of the natural world. It doesn't reflect adequately on why subjectivity enters the universe at all. Why does the universe transcend itself from purely material to living and then to conscious phenomena?

It's like reading a Geoff post. How can the subjective not be objective or at least observable to some degree?

On page four, I first think when he mentions Tillich that he thinks God is beyond all existence, but this suggest God is part of the world.

I believe God is answering our prayers but not always in the ways we want. In the final analysis, we hope and trust that God will show or reveal himself as one who has been accompanying our prayers and responding to the world all along, but not necessarily in the narrow way that the human mind is able to conjure up.

But wait a minute what's this?

But if you ask me whether a scientific experiment could verify the Resurrection, I would say such an event is entirely too important to be subjected to a method which is devoid of all religious meaning. If you had a camera in the upper room when the disciples came together after the death and Resurrection of Jesus, we would not see it.

A terribly important event that never happened.
It's like debating a dualist, you never know which side of the fence he's on.

 

[Henners]

It's like debating a dualist, you never know which side of the fence he's on.

It's pretty clear that the author is a graduate in the humanities who thinks that he has something valid to say about the way science works, by osmosis, presumably.

All this Discourse / Foucault / Saussure / Lacan / Freud stuff is declarative nonsense with no scientific basis whatsoever.

Psychoanalysis is every bit as scientific as homeopathy.

/rant.

 

[Puppycow]

You're saying older atheists like Nietzsche and Camus had a more sophisticated critique of religion?

Yes. They wanted us to think out completely and thoroughly, and with unrelenting logic, what the world would look like if the transcendent is wiped away from the horizon. Nietzsche, Sartre and Camus would have cringed at "the new atheism" because they would see it as dropping God like Santa Claus, and going on with the same old values. The new atheists don't want to think out the implications of a complete absence of deity. Nietzsche, as well as Sartre and Camus, all expressed it quite correctly. The implications should be nihilism.

nihilism
n 1: a revolutionary doctrine that advocates destruction of the social system for its own sake
2: complete denial of all established authority and institutions

Non Sequitur. I deny religious authority, but I value civilization for its own sake, and I certainly don't want to destroy the social system, because it benefits me. And, saying that these "new" atheists don't pay attention to what's happening in theology is like accusing scientists of not paying attention to what's happening in homeopathy or other woo-woo. Who cares?

 

[CapelDodger]

I'm surprised at some of these comments. I certainly didn't agree with many of his conclusions or views, but I thought he made some intelligent points and is certainly more reasonable than a typical fundie.

The tactic I went off on was that of equating Science with dogma and faith, which is defensive, from a fundie, or typical, for a theologian. Science and faith actually occupy completely separate domains. And when it comes to the "New Atheists", they've been provoked by an attempted invasion of their domain. Not something that, say, Nietzsche had to put up with.

If you actually read the article he is against teaching ID in the schools. He testified at the Dover trial- against the IDer's.

I did misjudge the chap. I've not much time for theologians either but, John Haught and I agree on at least one thing :

""Ironically," Haught writes, "ID advocates share with their ideological enemies, the evolutionary materialists, the assumption that science itself can provide ultimate explanations."

Irony in the right context. Some Philosophers are at least good for something.

He obviously isn't threatened by evolution.

As a Philosopher he doesn't feel threatened by anything, he just tries to make it his bitch.

Really, you can disagree with anything you want. But to make statements implying that he's threatened by evolution when he clearly isn't you're not being any more intelligent than an IDer claiming that "evolution is just a theory".

I've been known to go off half-cocked (or fully-coked) at times. This was one .

 

[CapelDodger]

Non Sequitur. I deny religious authority, but I value civilization for its own sake, and I certainly don't want to destroy the social system, because it benefits me. And, saying that these "new" atheists don't pay attention to what's happening in theology is like accusing scientists of not paying attention to what's happening in homeopathy or other woo-woo. Who cares?

My response was the same. The implications of a "complete absence of deity" amount to a shrug. Carry on with life as before, love your family and neighbours, pursue your career and interests - bugger-all has changed.

Not a view every Philosopher would share, and damn' few theologians. But then, their views don't really matter. Life goes on regardless.

 

[Nucular]

I personally think that was a pretty interesting article, and a few of his points - for instance that Dawkins, et al. tend to be a bit sketchy or pedestrian on some of the details of the theological concepts they discuss - were fair, imo.

But I think it seems moderately clear that he only really misses the overintellectualised atheism of Nietzsche, Sartre, Camus, etc. because of their terrifying (at first sight) view of a Godless cosmos, and their intense inaccessibility to the casual, or even non-casual, reader.

I think what really bothers him about 'new atheists', if the terminology is to be adopted, is the fact that they're not proposing an inevitable nihilistic post-religious existence of desperation, fear and nausea, but quite a nice world, mostly the same as now except more reasonable and more pleasant.

Seems to me that the whine underlying that whole interview is "O, bring back the weirdos!"

 

[Crossbow]

There's an article on Salon.com today ( Filter won't let me post URL yet ) that is an interview with John Haught, exploring his opinions of what's wrong with modern atheists like Dawkins. He seems to trot out a lot of the same old misgivings, that Science itself is a kind of faith, and so on. At the end of the article, he has some thoughts about how only religion can give mankind hope, and how stories like the Ressurection are myths but are there to cause us to rethink our own lives, and that is incredibly valuable and the same function cannot be performed by scientific reasoning.

Has anyone else read this article? I'm interested in other thoughts.

Welcome to JREF 'Furious Coder'!

John Haught is a theologian, therefore I seriously doubt that he can properly define the beliefs of Richard Dawkins.

If one wants to know about the beliefs of Richard Dawkins, then it would be much better if they were to read his books and/or web site about them instead of having John Haught, or anyone else, discuss them.

 

[tsg]

I personally think that was a pretty interesting article, and a few of his points - for instance that Dawkins, et al. tend to be a bit sketchy or pedestrian on some of the details of the theological concepts they discuss - were fair, imo.

It was pretty clear to me, based on his criticism, that he hasn't even read Dawkins or Hitchens. At the very least, he didn't understand it.

 

[Egg]

the idea that science alone can lead us to truth is questionable. There's no scientific proof for that. Those are commitments that I would place in the category of faith. So the proposal by the new atheists that we should eliminate faith in all its forms would also apply to scientific naturalism. But they don't want to go that far. So there's a self-contradiction there.

Personally, I find it pretty hard to refute this point. What is the argument of those who disagree with Haught on this?

 

[danielk]

Personally, I find it pretty hard to refute this point. What is the argument of those who disagree with Haught on this?

He is correct in that you cannot prove the validity of the statement "rational inquiry is the only way to gain knowledge" by logical means. The statement "only statements arrived at through observation and reason alone can be true" is self-refuting.

However, as long as you avoid this naïve version of it, rationalism is not contradictory. You cannot logically disprove solipsism either, but it would still be foolish to assume solipsism is true. There is good reason to assume the primacy of reason, because without it we cannot communicate. What we're discussing here is in the end nothing but postmodernist relativism in disguise. People who talk like that are kidding themselves, because if you follow their reasoning to logical conclusions, ... ah wait, you aren't supposed to assume logic is a valid basis. Well, whatever, it doesn't matter what anyone said since you cannot discuss it. So there! Confusing? That's all they do.

The primacy of science is the next step. You cannot prove that it is the only way to knowledge. But our experience overwhelmingly supports the assumption that science is better than any other method we know of to sort out truth from falsehoods. Theists like to say science doesn't give you certainty that something is true, and they are absolutely right. But using the process of elimination, science helps to get closer and closer to the truth with every iteration.

Just making up something is not a reasonable answer to the problem of uncertainty.

Man, it sure helps to have read Popper on my train ride home today.

 

[Dunstan]

Personally, I find it pretty hard to refute this point. What is the argument of those who disagree with Haught on this?

Well, here's a few thoughts off the top of my head:

the idea that science alone can lead us to truth is questionable.

Ok, it's "questionable" in the sense that it's capable of being questioned. Science itself is about questioning things. This is a non-sequitur.

There's no scientific proof for that.

Ah, the beloved phrase "scientific proof." Science (with the possible exception of mathematics) doesn't "prove" things in the sense of ironclad, 100% certainty.

Is there strong evidence that the scientific method works better than "other ways of knowing"? Sure. But hey, feel free to test it.

Those are commitments that I would place in the category of faith.

Note what he's done here: he's created a position (one that has more than a whiff of straw to it) and then stated that he places that in the category of "faith."

So the proposal by the new atheists that we should eliminate faith in all its forms would also apply to scientific naturalism. But they don't want to go that far. So there's a self-contradiction there.

And now he springs his little "trap." Yawn.

I haven't received my credentials as a spokesman for the new atheists, but I would say that "our" proposal is actually more like this:

"Based on all the evidence available to us, the scientific method has a better track record of producing correct testable predictions than any alternative method that has thus far been proposed."

There's a big difference between confidence based on a track record of results and "faith" as the "new atheists" generally use that term.

It seems to me that Haught is employing an epistemological slippery slope: if the scientific method doesn't allow us to know things with 100% metaphysical certitude, then it's no better than any other method for determining the truth. It's the same kind of reasoning as folks who say "my grampa smoked three packs a day his entire life and lived to be 90. So smoking ain't dangerous."

 

[CapelDodger]

I personally think that was a pretty interesting article, and a few of his points - for instance that Dawkins, et al. tend to be a bit sketchy or pedestrian on some of the details of the theological concepts they discuss - were fair, imo.

Not in my opinion. Dawkins et al don't discuss theological concepts; only from a theologist's viewpoint are they doing that. And only to a Philosopher would that matter. So I'm not even as charitable as you .

But I think it seems moderately clear that he only really misses the overintellectualised atheism of Nietzsche, Sartre, Camus, etc. because of their terrifying (at first sight) view of a Godless cosmos, and their intense inaccessibility to the casual, or even non-casual, reader.

Absolutely. Theologians are just Philosophers who can't accept that they serve no purpose. They seek one out in a god, and are hardly likely to accept that there's no purpose in a god either.

I think what really bothers him about 'new atheists', if the terminology is to be adopted, is the fact that they're not proposing an inevitable nihilistic post-religious existence of desperation, fear and nausea, but quite a nice world, mostly the same as now except more reasonable and more pleasant.

Couldn't agree more.

Seems to me that the whine underlying that whole interview is "O, bring back the weirdos!"

Philosophers have been whining since Science went off on its own. Thus the "science is just another faith" thing, which is just living in denial, frankly. Nietzsche was no scientist.

 

[Egg]

The primacy of science is the next step. You cannot prove that it is the only way to knowledge. But our experience overwhelmingly supports the assumption that science is better than any other method we know of to sort out truth from falsehoods. Theists like to say science doesn't give you certainty that something is true, and they are absolutely right. But using the process of elimination, science helps to get closer and closer to the truth with every iteration.

Just making up something is not a reasonable answer to the problem of uncertainty.

From what he says about science, I don't think he's arguing that science is worse than any other method or that other methods should supersede science in any way. I would assume he's talking about areas where science either doesn't or can't give us any answers. I'm not sure he makes it clear what other methods he suggests, but I don't think he's suggesting just making something up or abandoning reason.

His point isn't against science. Only against the insistence that anything other than science should automatically be dismissed.

 

[danielk]

His point isn't against science. Only against the insistence that anything other than science should automatically be dismissed.

But the point is that we have good reason to assume that science is definitely superior as a means to achieve intersubjective knowledge.

 

[Egg]

Ah, the beloved phrase "scientific proof." Science (with the possible exception of mathematics) doesn't "prove" things in the sense of ironclad, 100% certainty.

I'm not seeing this in his argument. Even if we accept say 90% certainty as proof enough or even "highly likely", what scientific evidence is there that any other possible methods can't also lead to truth - even sometimes (assuming that such methods aren't held as any higher proof than science)?

"Based on all the evidence available to us, the scientific method has a better track record of producing correct testable predictions than any alternative method that has thus far been proposed."

I don't see anything to suggest Haught would argue with that.

Going a little off-topic here, but couldn't that statement be said to be circular reasoning? We prove the scientific method by using the scientific method. What other method would we use to prove that the testable predictions are correct?

 

[danielk]

We prove the scientific method by using the scientific method. What other method would we use to prove that the testable predictions are correct?

Success.

Electricity. Cars. Space travel. Refrigerators. Abundance of food. Computers. Dramatically increased average lifespan. Dramatically reduced child mortality. Less suffering.

I could go on.

 

[Dunstan]

Going a little off-topic here, but couldn't that statement be said to be circular reasoning? We prove the scientific method by using the scientific method. What other method would we use to prove that the testable predictions are correct?

Well, my statement was a little different from your characterization (bolded) of it. I said "Based on all the evidence available to us, the scientific method has a better track record of producing correct testable predictions than any alternative method that has thus far been proposed."

I agree that it's hardly surprising that a method based around producing accurate testable predictions is good at producing accurate testable predictions. That's not circular reasoning, though. Not everything is good at doing what it claims to do: astrology claims to make accurate testable predictions, too, it just isn't very good at actually doing so.

Now, you can argue that there are other, better criteria for evaluating "ways of knowing," but then you'd better make the case for them.

I would assume he's talking about areas where science either doesn't or can't give us any answers

Well, if science can't give us any answers about a subject, then logically it must be a subject that does not allow for predictions to be tested. In such a case, then any "method" is as good as another as far as I'm concerned. "Faith" would be no better in my opinion than "pulling stuff out of my posterior" (though I would argue the two are rather similar!).

But folks like Haught like to toss around this idea of "things science can't answer" but rarely give examples. And "faith" rarely confines itself to these hypothetical areas; it tends to make testable predictions about the nature of the universe that don't fare so well.

 

[Egg]

Success.

Electricity. Cars. Space travel. Refrigerators. Abundance of food. Computers. Dramatically increased average lifespan. Dramatically reduced child mortality. Less suffering.

I could go on.

I don't disagree, and I think your point makes it clear that it is successful. Personally I'm quite happy to accept my personal experiences of such things as proof enough. Pointless though it may be, and probably going off into solipsism as you suggested earlier, but it would still be the scientific method we would use to judge that success (going from the scientific naturalism point of view), wouldn't it?

But the point is that we have good reason to assume that science is definitely superior as a means to achieve intersubjective knowledge.

I don't see Haught disagreeing with this point. However superior it may be to any other method, it doesn't in itself preclude other methods having a possibility of success in areas where science has its limits.

 

[danielk]

Pointless though it may be, and probably going off into solipsism as you suggested earlier, but it would still be the scientific method we would use to judge that success (going from the scientific naturalism point of view), wouldn't it?

No. We know for a fact that our knowledge of the world vastly increased since humans began to employ the scientific method. For that you only have to assume that there is an objective reality, that other people exist, and that what we know about history isn't completely wrong.

Science is the application of the scientific method, which goes further than what I said above.

However superior it may be to any other method, it doesn't in itself preclude other methods having a possibility of success in areas where science has its limits.

The problem with the other methods suggested so far is that we have no way to ascertain whether their findings are true or not.

 

[Egg]

Well, my statement was a little different from your characterization (bolded) of it. I said "Based on all the evidence available to us, the scientific method has a better track record of producing correct testable predictions than any alternative method that has thus far been proposed."

Apologies if I misrepresented you there, that wasn't my intention. I made a jump to the assumption that we would use the scientific method to test that the predictions were correct.

I agree that it's hardly surprising that a method based around producing accurate testable predictions is good at producing accurate testable predictions. That's not circular reasoning, though. Not everything is good at doing what it claims to do: astrology claims to make accurate testable predictions, too, it just isn't very good at actually doing so.

Hmm..what about if by using astrology to test the predictions that astrology made we found consistency?

But folks like Haught like to toss around this idea of "things science can't answer" but rarely give examples. And "faith" rarely confines itself to these hypothetical areas; it tends to make testable predictions about the nature of the universe that don't fare so well.

The example he does give is "the idea that science alone can lead us to truth". While we can show that science is the best method, how can it be shown that it's the only method which can lead us to truth? If it can't be, then is he right in suggesting that belief in the idea is a matter of faith?