John G. Messerly's Blog, page 155

Hope and Meaning for Non-Believers

All my life I struggled to stretch my mind to the breaking point, until it began to creak, in order to create a great thought which might be able to give a new meaning to life, a new meaning to death, and to console mankind. ~ Nikos Kazantzakis

I can imagine no greater gift than to give people a reason for living, especially people for whom the consolations of religion are empty. For believers the problem doesn’t exist because for them life’s meaning is coextensive with the existence of supernatural beings. I have written extensively why this proposed solution doesn’t satisfy, and I will not revisit the issue here except to say that this solution is question-begging . And even if the proposed solution were valid, it satisfies only those who disregard the evidence and accept the existence of divine beings. Instead I’m here to speak for the generally more educated non-believers whose numbers grow as science advances–despite arguments from the science/religion compatiblists. Darwin noted as much long ago: 

I am a strong advocate for free thought on all subjects, yet it appears to me (whether rightly or wrongly) that direct arguments against christianity and theism produce hardly any effect on the public; and freedom of thought is best promoted by the gradual illumination of men’s minds, which follow[s] from the advance of science. …  ~ Charles Darwin – (Letter to E.B. Aveling, 13 Oct 1880).

The key question is what you should do if you find there is no reason to have hope that life has meaning. Should you try to convince people to have hope anyway? Or should you tell them that you believe life to be essentially meaningless? I think you should tell the truth. You give your best reasons and let others conclude what they want–which they will anyway. If the truth doesn’t matter, then nothing does.

I do know that hope does not derive from the past, both because the past is closed and because an honest look at it is not uplifting. Hope is for and about the future, this is what keeps us going.

In a century or two, or in a millennium, people will live in a new way, a happier way. We won’t be there to see it–but it’s why we live, why we work. It’s why we suffer. We’re creating it. That’s the purpose of our existence. The only happiness we can know is to work toward that goal.

~ Anton Chekov

No One Has a Monopoly on Truth

As a follow-up to my recent post about truth, I would like to clarify what I see as the grave danger of being certain that one possesses the truth. As for truths in the natural sciences our concerns are irrelevant. Science by its nature is provisional; it is always open to contrary evidence and willing to adjust based on new evidence. Thus arrogant dogmatism–which can lead to genocide or warfare–is virtually impossible given the scientific method. The attitude of searching for truth and accepting provisionally what the evidence reveals, prevents the kind of absolute certainty which is our main concern.

However when humans believe strongly in areas where truth is difficult or perhaps impossible to attain, or where truth might not even exist, the situation is dire. Unlike in science, where the evidence constrains our thinking, in religion for example one can believe virtually anything. Moreover these beliefs are often held with great fervency. It takes no willpower to believe in gravity or evolution–because the evidence overwhelms an impartial viewer–whereas in religion it often takes much faith. If we combine fervency of belief with strong faith we have a potent mix. If we feel strongly and we reject anything that will contradict our beliefs, naturally we may soon regard our beliefs are infallible. Crusades, inquisitions, persecution, and religious wars are the natural outgrowth of such attitudes. The great American philosopher John Dewey reflected on our concerns:  

“If I have said anything about religions and religion that seems harsh, I have said those things because of a firm belief that the claim on the part of religions to possess a monopoly of ideals and of the supernatural means by which alone, it is alleged, they can be furthered, stands in the way of the realization of distinctively religious values inherent in natural experience…. The opposition between religious values as I conceive them and religions is not to be abridged.  Just because the release of these values is so important, their identification with the creeds and cults of religions must be dissolved.”  

The contemporary American philosopher Simon Critchley also captured our revulsion at arrogant dogmatism in a recent column in the New York Times entitled: “The Dangers of Certainty: A Lesson From Auschwitz.” Critchley advocates tolerance regarding our assessment of other persons; thereby rejecting the certainty that leads to arrogance, intolerance, and dogmatism.

“The play of tolerance opposes the principle of monstrous certainty that is endemic to fascism and, sadly, not just fascism but all the various faces of fundamentalism. When we think we have certainty, when we aspire to the knowledge of the gods, then Auschwitz can happen and can repeat itself. Arguably, it has repeated itself in the genocidal certainties of past decades. …  We always have to acknowledge that we might be mistaken. When we forget that, then we forget ourselves and the worst can happen.”

Critchley also includes a moving video excerpt from DrJacob Bronowski, a British mathematician and polymath. In the old video Bronowski visits Auschwitz, where he reflects on the horrors that follow when people believe themselves infallible. The video serves as a testimony to remind all of us of our fallibility.

Does it Matter if We Know the Truth?

Suppose your are literate in a precise subject like the mathematical or natural sciences. Suppose you know how the communicative property works, how to factor polynomials, or the formulation of the quadratic equation. Suppose you know that atomic, relativity, or evolutionary theory are true beyond a reasonable doubt, that plate tectonics occupies a fundamental place in modern geology, or that the most recent report of the IPCC (the definitive international body on climate science made of thousands of climate scientists from around the world) says that the probability that humans are the main cause of global warming since the mid 20th century is between 95% and 100%. http://www.ipcc.ch/

Now suppose you encounter a skeptic who claims not to believe in scientific theories. You are clearly right and they are scientifically illiterate about the scientific theory in question. (With the caveat that no knowledge is absolutely certain.) But what difference does it make? In a sense it doesn’t seem to matter. They may get along better with their false beliefs than you do with your true ones. Whether they are flat earthists or climate change deniers they may be happy in their beliefs, and changing their mind may cause them cognitive dissonance.

But in another sense the truth does matter. If we want to build a bridge we will need mathematical principles; if we want to understand flu viruses we need evolutionary theory; if we want to find oil we’ll need geology; if we want to make chemicals we’ll need to understand the periodic table; and if we want to understand climate change we need to know basic physics. It may not matter if people privately believe they can find oil by using tarot cards, build highway bridges out of duck tape, or cure disease with incantation; but if you really want to find oil or build secure bridges or fight disease you’ll need geology and engineering and modern medicine.

Of course this may all seem obvious because in the mathematical and natural sciences are so precise. But what of less precise sciences? If we turn to the social sciences like economics, psychology, history, or political science the situation is a bit different. In these fields even the experts sometimes disagree. I can say with certainty that there was a Roman Empire or a Holocaust in 20th century Europe if I’m a legitimate historian, but exactly why they happened is open to debate. Still a lot hinges on these disciplines too and many lives are affected by them so it important to try to find out what’s really true  regarding their subject matter, not just what we want to be true. All we can do in these cases is proportion our assent to the evidence, view the matter impartially–very hard to do given human psychology–and then act the best we can.

If we get to subjects like the humanities and aesthetics we are truly in the realm of relative, or nearly relative, truth. The truths about philosophy and religion, even if they are objective, are so difficult to discern one can easily accept disagreement. And when we get to what is a good movie, book, poem, or piece of art, well here the truth really does seem subjective and relative.  In short there just isn’t much point in fighting about whether broccoli really tastes good.

Other than in these cases where it seems there is no truth–the broccoli case–the truth certainly matters. And not just for public policy. If individuals believe falsehoods it may well cost them money. If they think they can beat the odds in Las Vegas or if they pay for clairvoyants or palm readers who they incorrectly think can predict the future, they will pay for their false beliefs. Falsehoods may even cost them their lives. They might die in unjust wars because they believe the lies of politicians; they might give their lives to spreading false religious dogmas; or they may fail to wear a seat belt because they would rather be “thrown clear in an accident.” (This was actually a widely held belief in the early days of seat belts in cars!)

Thus we must distinguish between knowing what’s true and convincing others that something is true. Both are difficult. The first results from using the scientific method, from a careful and conscientious examination of the world. Scientists go to their laboratory toiling for years to tease a bit of truth out of reality. (For more see Charles Sanders Pierce’s classic: “The Fixation of Belief.”) Convincing others is much more difficult, especially since many people cling to comfortable beliefs and intuitions, often enjoy being contrarians, or are simply disagreeable. Add selection bias and the various reasoning errors that human are so prone too, and it easy to see why it is difficult to change a mind.

In the end we should continually reexamine our own beliefs–to rid ourselves of false ones–and state the case for those things about which we have great certainty–well-tested scientific theories for example. After that there isn’t much we can do except hope that truth will win out in the end. This doesn’t mean I’m optimistic about this happening. I just believe that if the truth doesn’t matter, then not much else does as well.

 

 

The Problem of Work-family Conflict in the US

THE OVERWHELMING PROBLEM OF WORK-FAMILY CONFLICT IN AMERICA

The Center for American Progress has compiled the most data-driven, comprehensive report on work-family conflict that I have ever seen. The complete report and the executive summary may be downloaded from the following link:

http://www.americanprogress.org/issue...

Here are some brief excerpts:

Work-family conflict is much higher in the United States than elsewhere in the developed world. One reason is that Americans work longer hours than workers in most other developed countries, including Japan, where there is a word, karoshi, for “death by overwork.” The typical American middle-income family put in an average of 11 more hours a week in 2006 than it did in 1979.

Not only do American families work longer hours; they do so with fewer laws to support working families. Only the United States lacks paid maternity-leave laws among the 30 industrialized democracies in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. The only family leave available to Americans is unpaid, limited to three months, and covers only about half the labor force. Discrimination against workers with family responsibilities, illegal throughout Europe, is forbidden only indirectly here. Americans also lack paid sick days, limits on mandatory overtime, the right to request work-time flexibility without retaliation, and proportional wages for part-time work. All exist elsewhere in the developed world.

So it should come as no surprise that Americans report sharply higher levels of work-family conflict than do citizens of other industrialized countries. Fully 90 percent of American mothers and 95 percent of American fathers report work-family conflict. 

THE POLITICAL IMPASSE

“The United States today has the most family-hostile public policy in the developed world…” due to a long-standing political impasse.” (For Americans the same situation applies to America’s inability to deal with climate change, a deteriorating infrastructure, environmental degradation, lack of social safety net, lack of universal health care, etc.) But why is the US so incapable of dealing with an obvious situation when the rest of the developed world has done so? One reason is the policy makers and media think in unrealistic, manufactured images about what the conflict looks like. So for example they might portray this as the admirable choice a high-paying professional woman makes to forgo her career to care for her child. How selfless! The opposite story is told about the welfare to work mother. Here the question is whether the mothers who are not working should be cut off from the few hundred dollars a month they receive from the TANF program. The problem is that these portraits are inadequate to describe typical situations: 

Both professional women and welfare mothers are portrayed in these narratives as lacking sufficient personal or financial incentives to work outside the home. Thus, in this frame, the problem is viewed as not the lack of adequate public policies but rather the personal choices of a small set of mothers who are in families that do not look like most U.S. families. Politicians have actively used these narratives to reject moving forward on a work-family agenda.

(The power of framing never seeks to amaze. For example, Ronald Reagan’s Cadillac-driving welfare queen still misinforms policy makers–whether unintentionally or intentionally I don’t know. As anyone who has ever been to inner city St. Louis or Detroit or Chicago can attest, welfare recipients are not living well on the meager dollars they receive, assuming they receive anything at all. It is well-known that the welfare in our society is almost exclusively for the rich. The money in society is not redistributed from the rich to the poor and middle class but the reverse. Mancur Olson’s monumental work, The Rise and Decline of Nations: Economic Growth, Stagflation, and Social Rigidities, made this point clearly with numerous historical example. As Olson demonstrated from a careful look at the history of world economies,  the money in societies generally does not trickle out of the bottom of the economy, it blows out the top. Think savings and loan scandals, raiding of pension funds, and of course the financial crisis of the US in 2008 when Wall Street bankers and financiers stole a good part of America’s wealth. In the US today 40 hedge fund managers make as much as 300,000 school teachers, almost a third of all American teachers. ) http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2014...

THE REAL SITUATION 

But between the wealthy mother praised for selflessly staying at home and the poor mother criticized for doing so are the vast numbers parents in the middle. These parents work very hard for money they need desperately and, at the same time, try to care for their children and sometimes their aged parents in a society without any societal support. While parents of differing economic means experience the problem differently, the conclusion of the report based on massive amounts of data going back to the 1970s is this:

Our analysis shows that while families across the spectrum face work-family conflict … no matter where Americans stand on the income spectrum, they need short-term and extended paid leave and new workplace flexibility rules, as well as high-quality, affordable childcare and freedom from discrimination based on family responsibilities.

To understand the disconnect between most family’s experience of work-family conflict and political impotence to take steps to alleviate the situation, the report details the changing social conditions of the past 60 years which have led to the situation becoming so acute in America. What we have today is a workplace designed for the workforce of 1960 which was almost exclusively male. The major changes in the workforce today are drastic changes in: a)working hours; b)income gaps between various workers and; c) patterns of family care.  In great detail the report shows both the social and economic costs of our policies. It also shows how changes in public policy would positively effect the lives of families across the income spectrum while at the same time making America more competitive economically. Thus, as with universal health care, there is both an economic and moral argument for making the changes to bring America more in line with other more Enlightened developed countries. As the report says:

For this to happen, though, progressives need to build a strong coalition that can appeal to the poor, the professionals, and the missing middle with their different work-life conflicts. Above all, progressives need to explain how the family-friendly policies Americans need to enable them both to care for and support their families are needed by American families at all income levels—even if their needs differ.

PHILOSOHICAL CONCLUSION

To me the central message is that we must appeal to people’s self-interest; while at the same time getting them to see that their self-interest and those of others coincides. Otherwise they oppose policies that would help them just because those policies would help others. In short, we must get people to see that we’re all in this together. Of course this is a difficult task when those in power are at the same time selfish and unenlightened. A better understanding of “the prisoner’s dilemma,” would help people realize that by cooperating we can all do better and none of us do worse. (What game theories call the Pareto optimal outcome.) Whether this entails more than changes in public policy but actually changing human nature itself, I’ll leave for the reader to decide. But at a minimum one would have to change a system in which legislators were beholding to the moneyed interests that keep them in power rather than being committed to the common good. This situation exemplifies  dysfunctional government.

But one thing is certain. By adopting the more enlightened policies of the rest of the developed world regarding family-work conflict, America would not become a more sissified nation as the movement conservatives claim. Instead we would become a better and more productive nation, as the evidence overwhelming suggests.

 

 

 

The Overwhelming Problem of Work-family Conflict in the US

THE OVERWHELMING PROBLEM OF WORK-FAMILY CONFLICT IN AMERICA

The Center for American Progress has compiled the most data-driven, comprehensive report on work-family conflict that I have ever seen. The complete report and the executive summary may be downloaded from the following link:

http://www.americanprogress.org/issue...

Here are some brief excerpts:

Work-family conflict is much higher in the United States than elsewhere in the developed world. One reason is that Americans work longer hours than workers in most other developed countries, including Japan, where there is a word, karoshi, for “death by overwork.” The typical American middle-income family put in an average of 11 more hours a week in 2006 than it did in 1979.

Not only do American families work longer hours; they do so with fewer laws to support working families. Only the United States lacks paid maternity-leave laws among the 30 industrialized democracies in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. The only family leave available to Americans is unpaid, limited to three months, and covers only about half the labor force. Discrimination against workers with family responsibilities, illegal throughout Europe, is forbidden only indirectly here. Americans also lack paid sick days, limits on mandatory overtime, the right to request work-time flexibility without retaliation, and proportional wages for part-time work. All exist elsewhere in the developed world.

So it should come as no surprise that Americans report sharply higher levels of work-family conflict than do citizens of other industrialized countries. Fully 90 percent of American mothers and 95 percent of American fathers report work-family conflict. 

THE POLITICAL IMPASSE

“The United States today has the most family-hostile public policy in the developed world…” due to a long-standing political impasse.” (For Americans the same situation applies to America’s inability to deal with climate change, a deteriorating infrastructure, environmental degradation, lack of social safety net, lack of universal health care, etc.) But why is the US so incapable of dealing with an obvious situation when the rest of the developed world has done so? One reason is the policy makers and media think in unrealistic, manufactured images about what the conflict looks like. So for example they might portray this as the selfless choice a high-paying professional woman makes to forgo her career to care for her child. How selfless! The opposite story is told about the welfare to work mother. Here the question is whether the mothers who are not working should be cut off from the few hundred dollars a month they receive from the TANF program. The problem is that these portraits are inadequate to describe typical situations: 

Both professional women and welfare mothers are portrayed in these narratives as lacking sufficient personal or financial incentives to work outside the home. Thus, in this frame, the problem is viewed as not the lack of adequate public policies but rather the personal choices of a small set of mothers who are in families that do not look like most U.S. families. Politicians have actively used these narratives to reject moving forward on a work-family agenda.

(The power of framing never seeks to amaze. For example, Ronald Reagan’s Cadillac-driving welfare queen still misinforms policy makers–whether unintentionally or intentionally I don’t know. As anyone who has ever been to inner city St. Louis or Detroit or Chicago can attest, welfare recipients are not living well on the meager dollars they receive, assuming they receive anything at all. It is well-known that the welfare in our society is almost exclusively for the rich. The money is society is not redistributed from the rich to the poor and middle class but the reverse. Mancur Olson’s monumental work, The Rise and Decline of Nations: Economic Growth, Stagflation, and Social Rigidities, made this point clearly. In short, as Olson demonstrates from a careful look at the history of world economies,  the money in societies generally does not trickle out of the bottom of the economy, it blows out the top. Think savings and loan scandals, raiding of pension funds, and of course the financial crisis of the US in 2008 when Wall Street bankers and financiers stole a good part of America’s wealth. In the US today 40 hedge fund managers make as much as 300,000 school teachers, almost a third of all American teachers. ) http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2014...

THE REAL SITUATION 

But between the wealthy mother praised for selflessly staying at home and the poor mother criticized for doing so are the vast numbers parents in the middle. These parents work very hard for money they need desperately and, at the same time, try to care for their children in a society without any societal support. While parents of differing economic means experience the problem differently, the conclusion of the report based on massive amounts of data going back to the 1970s is this:

Our analysis shows that while families across the spectrum face work-family conflict … no matter where Americans stand on the income spectrum, they need short-term and extended paid leave and new workplace flexibility rules, as well as high-quality, affordable childcare and freedom from discrimination based on family responsibilities.

To understand the disconnect between most family’s experience of work-family conflict and political impotence to take steps to alleviate the situation, the report details the changing social conditions of the past 60 years which have led to the situation becoming so acute in America. What we have today is a workplace designed for the workforce of 1960 which was almost exclusively male. The major changes in the workforce today are drastic changes in: a)working hours; b)income gaps between various workers and; c) patterns of family care.  In great detail the report shows both the social and economic costs of our policies. It also shows how changes in public policy would positively effect the lives of families across the income spectrum while at the same time making America more competitive economically. Thus, as with universal health care, there is both an economic and moral argument for making the changes to bring America more in line with other more Enlightened developed countries. As the report says:

For this to happen, though, progressives need to build a strong coalition that can appeal to the poor, the professionals, and the missing middle with their different work-life conflicts. Above all, progressives need to explain how the family-friendly policies Americans need to enable them both to care for and support their families are needed by American families at all income levels—even if their needs differ.

PHILOSOHICAL CONCLUSION

The central message is that we must appeal to people’s self-interest; while at the same time getting them to see that their self-interest and those of others coincides. oOtherwise they oppose policies that would help them just because they would help others. In short, we must get people to see that we’re all in this together. Of course this is a difficult task when those in power are at the same time selfish and unenlightened. A better understanding of “the prisoner’s dilemma,” would help people realize that by cooperating we can all do better and none of us do worse. (What game theories call the Pareto optimal outcome.) Whether this entails more than changes in public policy but actually changing human nature itself, I’ll leave for the reader to decide.

But one thing is certain. By adopting the more enlightened policies of the rest of the developed world regarding family-work conflict, America would not become a more sissified nation as the movement conservatives would claim. Instead we would become a better and more productive nation.

 

 

 

The Insights and Illusions of Philosophy

Lest one think my previous disparaging remarks were limited to theology, let me turn them toward my own field, philosophy. Jean Piaget (1896 – 1980), one of the most important intellectuals of the twentieth century, was an expert in both fields. In the mid-twentieth century Piaget penned a wonderful little book entitled: “The Insights and Illusions of Philosophy.”

Piaget’s lifelong interest, and the reason he devoted many decades to studying the intellectual development of children, was in articulating a biological epistemology. Piaget’s early intellectual experiences with Bergson and Spencer, left him convinced that speculation uniformed by science was intellectually dishonest.  (This is reminiscent of Bertrand Russell saying: “A philosopher who uses his professional competence for anything other except a disinterested search for truth is guilty of a kind of treachery.”) Speculation, based on intuition and introspection, has no epistemological justification in making claims about empirical facts.  Needless to say, such speculation he saw as a hallmark of philosophy. He clearly expressed his attitude toward philosophical speculation:

“It was while teaching philosophy that I saw how easily one can say … what one wants to say … In fact, I became particularly aware of the dangers of speculation … It’s a natural tendency. It’s so much easier than digging out facts. You sit in your office and build a system. It’s wonderful. But with my training in biology, I felt this kind of undertaking was precarious.”1

Philosophical speculation can raise questions, but it cannot provide answers; answers are found only in testing and experimentation. Knowledge presupposes verification, and verification attains only by mutually agreed-upon controls. Unfortunately, philosophers do not usually have experience in inductive and experimental verification.

Young philosophers because they are made to specialize immediately on entering the university in a discipline which the greatest thinkers in the history of philosophy have entered only after years of scientific investigations, believe they have immediate access to the highest regions of knowledge, when neither they nor sometimes their teachers have the least experience of what it is to acquire and verify a specific piece of knowledge.2

But how did it happen that philosophy, which gave birth to the sciences, became so separate from the scientific method? Piaget traces this separation to the 19th century, when philosophy came to believe that it possessed a “suprascientific” knowledge. This split was disastrous for philosophy, as it retreated to its own world, lost its hold on the intellectual imagination, and had its credibility questioned. For Piaget, philosophy is synonymous with science or reflection upon science, and philosophy uniformed by science cannot find truth; at most it provides subjective wisdom. In fact philosophy is not even about truth; at most it is about meaning and values.

And if this is true of philosophy, it is also true of theology.

Notes.

1. Jean-Claude Bringuier, Conversations with Piaget (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980), 13.

2. Jean Piaget, Insights and Illusions of Philosophy, trans. W. Mays (New York: World Publishing Company, 1971) xiv.

 

Science & Religion: A Dialogue

I was thinking more about the science/religion question.

Science is nearly certain about its basic truths–atomic, gravitational, evolutionary, quantum, relativity theories. If we add truths from logic and mathematics the argument gets stronger. (I understand that we may live in a simulation or the gods are playing with our minds, but other than that we can be as sure of these things as anything we know.)

Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that this represents 1% of all possible knowledge; that is we would then be 99% short of omniscience if we believed these things and they were true. Yes there is no way to calculate this but the argument doesn’t change if we know 10% of all there is to know or 0.0000001%. Unless one is a complete full-blown epistemological skeptic, we have some small bit of knowledge. Now for the theologians the less we know the better, for that leaves more room for the unknown which, according to them, leaves more room for their gods.

Now the question is: Is it better to live believing these relatively certain things, proportioning our assent to the evidence about other proposition, and being skeptical of speculation; or is it better to engage in metaphysical speculation, or to just affirm without evidence that reality is good, say because of gods? Now let’s follow the conversation of two thinkers on this question:

Theologian – “there is so much you don’t know  so there might be gods or souls in there or out there somewhere. Moreover we might as well talk about all we don’t know–say about whether hope is justified and whether life is meaningful–since these topics are of such great importance to people. And people like the comfort we provide when we describe the mysterious in a favorable light. ”

Scientist – “let’s not go beyond  what we know beyond a reasonable doubt and posit supernatural explanations for that is just speculation. Instead let’s use the only method that has ever provided humans with any knowledge at all and accept what we don’t know rather than speculating about the favorable or unfavorable light we might shine on what we don’t know.”

Theologian – “But people can’t live with that kind of ambiguity. Besides I feel confident that there are gods and they are good.”

Scientist – “Some people can’t live with ambiguity, but a lot of people do. Besides believing things without sufficient evidence is often harmful because one’s beliefs affect others. You have an obligation only to believe those things for which there is sufficient evidence.”

Theologian – “Why? We have to accept all sorts of things without sufficient evidence and I chose to accept there are loving gods, that life makes sense, that I am immortal, and that these hopes are justified.”

Scientist – “There is nothing wrong with optimism about things you don’t know, as long as you keep them private. But when you try to influence the public realm, you are open to the criticism that your ideas are not sufficiently supported.”

Theologian – “Well I’d rather be wrong and at least have speculated about the good nature of reality beyond what I know, than limit myself to your relatively certain but unimportant truths.”

Scientist – “Well I’d rather have my limited amount of truths about which I can feel really confident, and then try to learn a little bit more with each generation. I can live with ambiguity.”

Theologian – “I don’t see how you can live like that, but I suppose we are just different kinds of people.”

Scientist – “I don’t see how you can live like you do either. I suppose we are different. And as long as you want to believe whatever in private ok. But don’t try to bring your religious beliefs into our sciences classes.”

Theologian – “But your beliefs–in heliocentrism and evolution–invade in theology. So you necessarily bring your scientific truths into religion. After all it was Galileo who started all this and now Darwin. You effect us as much as the reverse.”

Scientist – “Well we’re sorry but it turns out Galileo and Darwin were right. And you can either reject obvious truths like the fundamentalists do or modify your religious beliefs.”

Theologian – “That’s what we sophisticated theologians do; we’re not geocentrists or anti-evolutionists. We accept those things with our sophisticated theologies.”

Scientists – “Ok. This means you’ll become more and more like science. You’ll be a mystical reflection on science. And as knowledge grows you’ll have fewer and fewer gaps for your gods.”

Theologian – “I’m no “god of the gaps” theologian. I identify my god with the anti-entropic life forces that grounds being by attracting it toward higher levels of being and consciousness.”

Scientist – That sounds cool but I think you might be talking about cosmic evolution.”

Theologian – “I am.”

Scientist – “Then your theology is being modified by science.”

Theologian – “Of course. Just like Christianity was modified by its encounter with Greek philosophy.”

Scientist – “Sounds like your beliefs will evolve based on our real understanding of the world.”

Theologian – “Yes.”

Scientist – “Well then you’ll just have to wait for us to figure things out.”

Theologian – “And when you do we can still say that’s god, what the scientists figured out.”

Scientist – “Weird so you will stand on the sidelines for millenia and continue to modify your speculations based on what we discover.”

Theologian – “Of course because none of us can put into words what explains all this.”

Scientist – “Suppose we someday to explain everything or almost everything?”

Theologian – “You just can’t.”

Scientist – “But we’ll explain more and more and if there is no room for your gods then will you give up believing in them?”

Theologian – “I don’t think so.”

Scientist – “Ok. I have to get back to work actually figuring something out.”

 

 

Philosophers, Theologians, and Scientists

Rereading all the controversy created by John Haught’s attempt to not make public his debate in 2011 with Jerry Coyne, reminded me of something I was told by my graduate school mentor Richard J. Blackwell more than 25 years ago. Professor Blackwell was an endowed chair in the philosophy department but had also done advanced graduate work in physics. In addition he directed the graduate department program in philosophy of science and had written extensively on the topic. Needless to say he had been around both philosophers and scientists for all his life.

He told me the main difference between philosophical and scientific conferences or talks was how acrimonious the former were compared to the latter. He thought the main reason was, and I’m quoting almost verbatim, because scientists were (mostly) interested in what’s true while philosophers (mostly) wanted to be right. While he did not extend his arguments to theologians, I assume the argument would be even more applicable to them than philosophers. No wonder Haught got so upset with Coyne’s critique of religion. Lacking empirical or mathematical evidence for one’s proposition, one can only try to convince their opponent with anecdotes of personal experiences and one’s own persuasive powers. And when these fail, one becomes frustrated.

An interview with John Haught: Is This the Best Theology Has to Offer?

In a 2007 interview with Steve Paulson for Salon titled “The Atheist Delusion,” the Georgetown theologian John Haught made a number of problematic or obviously false claims.

For example, he says: The new atheists don’t want to think out the implications of a complete absence of deity … The implications should be nihilism.

This is more than problematic, it is manifestly false. Nihilism no more follows automatically from atheism than does meaningfulness from theism. As I argue in my recent book, The Meaning of Life: Religious, Philosophical, Scientific, and Transhumanist Perspectives, both nihilistic and non-nihilistic views can follow from either atheism or theism. Most importantly, the view that theism does not guarantee meaningfulness is the generally accepted view among contemporary philosophers, of whom only about 15% are theists. The majority of the remaining 85% of philosophers are not nihilists, as Haught’s argument implies they would be.

Next Haught suggests that theism justifies hope, whereas atheism cannot:

What I want to show in my own work — as an alternative to the new atheists — is a universe in which hope is possible … You (atheists) can have hope. But the question is, can you justify the hope? …  But we need a worldview that is capable of justifying the confidence that we place in our minds, in truth, in goodness, in beauty. I argue that an atheistic worldview is not capable of justifying that confidence. Some sort of theological framework can justify our trust in meaning, in goodness, in reason.

Again it is simply false to say that atheism implies hopelessness, as it is false to say that theism implies hopefulness. (What of the hell fires awaiting the dammed?) It is also patently false to say that theism (necessarily) justifies confidence in truth, goodness, beauty, meaning, and reason. (Is there anything else Haught wants to add? How about confidence that I will shoot 65 the next time I play 18 holes of golf? Does the theistic belief justify that?) It is true that it gives some people such confidence, but it is not apparent to others that all this follows from theism. Why else do nearly the entire populations of Scandinavia and Western Europe, as well as nearly all contemporary philosophers and members of the National Academy of Sciences reject theism? Do they all reject hope, meaning, reason, beauty, and goodness? No they do not.

In response to the interviewer’s query that many claims about the gods–that they interact with nature, create the world, or respond to intercessory prayer–are questions about nature and thus scientific questions, Haught responds:

Well, I approach these issues by making a case for what I call “layered explanation.” For example, if a pot of tea is boiling on the stove, and someone asks you why it’s boiling, one answer is to say it’s boiling because H2O molecules are moving around excitedly, making a transition from the liquid state to the gaseous state. And that’s a very good answer. But you could also say it’s boiling because my wife turned the gas on. Or you could say it’s boiling because I want tea. Here you have three levels of explanation which are approaching phenomena from different points of view. This is how I see the relationship of theology to science. Of course I think theology is relevant to discussing the question, what is nature? What is the world? It would talk about it in terms of being a gift from the Creator, and having a promise built into it for the future. Science should not touch upon that level of understanding. But it doesn’t contradict what evolutionary biology and the other sciences are telling us about nature. They’re just different levels of understanding.

This argument is so weak that even a good undergrad philosophy major would destroy it. (I’m assuming that most Georgetown undergrads are either sympathetic to it or afraid to challenge it.) First note that all 3 of Haught’s levels of explanations are open to scientific explanation. So Haught’s levels do not imply there is some supernatural level of explanation. His argument thus reduces to this: I think there are deeper levels of explanation than scientific ones. Ok, he can believe this if he wants, but there is not a shred of evidence to support this. In fact, every shred of evidence suggests the opposite: supernatural beliefs are not predictive or explanatory whereas scientific ones are. Moreover he doesn’t want science encroaching on this territory. (If it did we could dispense with theologians!) He is correct that his obscurantism doesn’t conflict with science though. And that’s because his claims are empty; they don’t say much other than “I think things are mysterious.” If so, let’s shed the light of reason on them, removing them from the realms of ignorance and superstition.

In response to a query about demanding evidence for a god’s existence, Haught provides more fodder for undergrad philosophy majors to practice their critical thinking skills:

The hidden assumption behind such a statement is often that faith is belief without evidence. Therefore, since there’s no scientific evidence for the divine, we should not believe in God. But that statement itself — that evidence is necessary — holds a further hidden premise that all evidence worth examining has to be scientific evidence. And beneath that assumption, there’s the deeper worldview — it’s a kind of dogma — that science is the only reliable way to truth. But that itself is a faith statement. It’s a deep faith commitment because there’s no way you can set up a series of scientific experiments to prove that science is the only reliable guide to truth. It’s a creed.

I assume that the non-scientific kind of evidence Haught refers to are subjective religious experiences. But surely he knows that those experiences only provide weak subjective justification–justified to those who have the experience–not strong objective justification–justified to those who don’t have the experience. Does this imply that science accepts the dogma: “that science is the only reliable way to truth?” No. It implies rather that science is the only reliable way to objective, verifiable truth because it is the only cognitive authority in the world today. Science certainly recognizes that people believe all sorts of things–some of which may turn out to be true.

Now if it becomes possible for pure introspection to uncover truths available to all, then great. But for now there is wild disagreement among persons about what subjective, intuitive, introspection reveals. (It reveals for example that the earth is flat and does not move.) This suggests that subjective experience is not a reliable method for finding truth. And believing this does not depend on faith or dogma; it depends on the evidence that science works, that it is the only method for uncovering truth that humans have ever found, whereas people’s guesses about the existence and nature of the supernatural realm vary widely.

Finally, that science doesn’t find what Haught wants it to find (reason to believe in layered explanation that includes the supernatural) does not support Haught’s contention that science is dogmatic; rather it suggests that Haught’s beliefs are less likely to be true than if some evidence for them were uncovered.

Haught continues his attack:

The new atheists have made science the only road to truth. They have a belief, which I call “scientific naturalism,” that there’s nothing beyond nature — no transcendent dimension — that every cause has to be a natural cause, that there’s no purpose in the universe, and that scientific explanations, especially in their Darwinian forms, can account for everything living. But 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.

Haught is correct that one cannot necessarily rule out the existence of gods, gremlins, or the flying spaghetti monster, but science doesn’t do this. It doesn’t invoke gods because supernatural explanations have not been fruitful in advancing human understanding. (In fact they have stood in the way of that understanding.) However science is always provisional and if there is evidence for gods or that prayer works, or if any other reasons to believe in gods suddenly appear, then science will change its mind, like it has changed its mind based on the evidence throughout its history. This lack of belief is not a faith; it is just following the evidence wherever it leads. It is believing in the invisible that takes faith.

Haught continues to advance mysticism:

… The traditions of religion and philosophy have always maintained that the most important dimensions of reality are going to be least accessible to scientific control. There’s going to be something fuzzy and elusive about them. The only way we can talk about them is through symbolic and metaphoric language — in other words, the language of religion. Traditionally, we never apologized for the fact that we used fuzzy language to refer to the real because the deepest aspect of reality grasps us more than we grasp it. So we can never get our minds around it.

This is Haught at his strongest, and its not that strong. Life is mysterious and language and equations cannot completely describe it (yet).  But this doesn’t imply that god and jesus are behind everything; it implies that theologians don’t really understand what they claim. Perhaps nothing is “behind” everything. And the solution to the problem of not understanding is not to make things up or advance wild conjecture, but to use technology to increase our intelligence (intelligence augmentation) or build machines that help us to understand (computers and artificial intelligences.)

Finally Haught cannot help but invoke subjective mental experiences to make his case:

I think science, especially neuroscience, does a very good job of saying what has to be working cerebrally and in our nervous systems in order for consciousness to be present. And it can also do a very good job of pointing out what has broken down physically and chemically if my brain is failing to function — for example, in Alzheimer’s. But it doesn’t have the complete explanation. 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.

I don’t pretend to know how to solve the mind-body problem. But invoking mystery doesn’t help much. Needless to say almost all philosophers and neuroscientists accept either a reductive or non-reductive physicalism regarding these questions. But all this nicely summarizes the essence of Haught’s thinking which is this: There are things that science can’t yet explain or doesn’t yet understand completely … thus (my) god is real. That’s like saying I don’t understand how the magician sawed that woman in half, thus apollo must be real. It’s really all so pathetic. Why can’t humans grow up and make a good world and dispense with the gods? Gods which are either non-existent, indifferent, or malevolent.

And if by chance they’re real and good, we still can’t count on them to help much. Let us face the world as adults, without relying on sky parents, and transform it for the better.

Should You Move Out of the USA if Possible?

There are many considerations here: one’s age, occupation, income, family status, foreign language abilities, potential destination, etc. Clearly moving to Central Africa would be unwise but what about moving to a country notably better in terms of happiness? One could consult the UN’s World Happiness Report where the US was ranked #17 and move to a happier country like Denmark or Sweden. (See http://www.ibtimes.com/worlds-happies...)

But it isn’t that simple. If one didn’t speak the language of the destination country then one would be isolated. So for our purposes let’s consider English-speaking developed countries, the kind that a US citizen might reasonably consider like Canada, England, Australia or New Zealand. Suppose you were a young married couple with a newborn considering such a move and you could get a job transfer to one of these countries. Would it be wise to do so?

In some respects it obviously would. The chances your child would be the victim of sexual assault or gun violence for example would drop dramatically. And if you were concerned about economic equality or a strong social safety net,  all of the above countries would be more aligned with your values than in the USA’s “winner-take-all” society. Still, suppose you had to leave extended family in the move? Would it be worth it then?

Consider the following thought experiment. Suppose you had to live in terrible conditions, say in a concentration camp or one of the worst countries in the world but surrounded your loved ones, or you could move by yourself to Denmark, the world’s happiest country, where you had a good job and spoke the language fluently. In that case moving to Denmark is the obvious choice, and anyone who loved you would encourage you to move.

Now suppose the move was between a country where your loved ones were to a country you thought a little bit better to live in but to which you family could not move? (Let’s say you could still see your loved ones once a year or so.) In that case most would probably stay put. The benefits of the support and comfort of grandparents, aunts, and uncles, would probably outweigh moving to a slightly better country.

Of course all of this depends on your best estimate of a country’s future. In the case of the US, increasing social corruption and political dysfunction make the future seem bleak but, on the other hand, it is nearly impossible to predict future trends. In the end  then we make life’s decisions with imperfect information; that is the state of the world that we must accept. And all advice is imperfect too.

With that caveat in mind I would advise all young people to seriously consider emigrating from the US if they have the chance, especially if their loved ones could accompany them. After observing trends over the last 50 years I believe America will increasingly become a worse place to live, except for the very wealthy. But I could be wrong.