Views from Crestmont Drive

Subtitled “Why Science and Religion are Incompatible”
(Viking, May 2015, xxii + 311pp, including 46pp of acknowledgements, notes, references,and index)

(Earlier: post 1; post 2; post 3; post 4)

Comments first this time:

The final chapter of this book asks, why does it matter? Whether science and religion are incompatible — or whether people reject fact in favor of faith?

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Subtitled “Why Science and Religion are Incompatible”
(Viking, May 2015, xxii + 311pp, including 46pp of acknowledgements, notes, references,and index)

(Earlier: post 1; post 2; post 3)

Summary: Chapter 4: Faith Strikes Back

Faith sometimes claims that it can deduce God via puzzles or problems science hasn’t been able to answer, the so-called “God of the gaps” argument. William Paley’s arguments about the design of the eye, for instance, and by extension “intelligent design.” But these *have* been explained by science, and the arguments for God undermined. (Nor would an such argument necessarily impugn any particular god, like the one you believe in.) Coyne reviews some of the famous arguments for God. From fine tuning: the “anthropic principle,” which has other explanations than a fine-tuning deity. (And anyway most of the cosmos, even most of the Earth, is uninhabitable; why *isn’t* the entire the entire universe a flat earth under a big dome? If that would have suited God’s purpose?) From morality: these arguments have been completely superseded by modern understanding of evolutionary psychology, referencing Wilson, Haidt, Pinker, Singer, derived from evolutionary principles and studies of human infants. And from the idea of “true beliefs,” from Alvin Plantinga, despite the fact that humans can and do believe many false things.

Other times faith argues that science is only one “way of knowing” and that religion is another. Science’s claims are accused of being “scientism,” and that religion and the humanities exist along side it. But to the extent these other areas yield knowledge, they work the same way science does, by doubt, reason, and empirical testing: “science broadly construed.” The same methods used by plumbers and electricians. Subjective experiences like art and music are more about imagination, not true knowledge; works of art yield different ‘truths’ just as different faiths do; they are culture-bound.

Faith usually just attacks science. It accuses science of thinking that it’s the only ‘way of knowing’; of thinking the humanities should be subsumed by science; that questions that can’t be answered by science aren’t worth considering; that scientists are arrogant and reluctant to admit when they are wrong. To which author responds: yes the first is true; on the second some agree (Wilson), others do not; no one says the third; and on the fourth, lots of people are arrogant. (Especially the faithful who are absolutely certain they know the cosmic truth.)

Then there are five common criticisms.

1) Science can’t prove that God doesn’t exist. Well, you can’t *prove* that leprechauns don’t exist in your garden, either. Yet you can consider weight of evidence and conclude that such claimed are extremely unlikely. If the claims about god are true, we should see some evidence. We don’t.

2) Science is based on faith. No; science works and is based on confidence base on past results.

3) Religion gave rise to science. Evidence is sketchy, but so what? Religion also has suppressed science.

4) Science does bad things. As bad as religion? There are always bad people ready to use whatever is at hand to do bad things. Recall the famous Steven Weinberg quote.

5) Science is fallible and its results are unreliable. But the point is that science is self-correcting. The occasional fraud is uncovered by other scientists. And the basic conclusions of science — such as continental drift, evolution, the speed of light — are unlikely ever to be overturned. While religion has *never* been right in its claims about the universe.

Comments

Will have comments in the final post.

Raw Notes: Ch4, Faith Strikes Back

Believers sometimes argue that religion is ‘another way of knowing’, but a more common tactic is to denigrate science.

                The New Natural Theology

Robert Ingersoll, p152 (paraphrasing): “no one infers god from what is known and understood; our ignorance is god; what we know is science.”

Natural theology is the idea of perceiving god by observing nature directly, e.g. by identifying puzzles or problems science hasn’t solved and claiming that God is the answer. This is the “God of the gaps” argument. Common in 17^th-19^th centuries, part of the scientific toolkit of the time.

William Paley, 1802, famous arguments about the design of the eye. Recently returned as ‘intelligent design’. Criticisms of these arguments go way back, and even Francis Collins rejects them, while citing them for the universe’s fine tuning and peoples’ innate moral feelings.

List of other topics: p156m

Is this to suggest these questions can *never* have naturalistic answers? Can scientists stop working on them? History suggests otherwise.

Second, does the god hypothesis predict anything new, the way science would? If not, it’s special pleading.

Third, would these explanations have anything to do with *your* god? [[ a good point I’ve cited myself ]] Why not someone else’s god?  [[ No, they’re not all the ‘same’ god. See Prothero ]]

We’ve already dismissed the supposed inevitability of human evolution. As for beginnings of life, we’ve learned a lot, and should be done in 50 years. Consciousness is difficult….

The ‘laws’ of physics are merely *observed regularities*, not laws handed down by some lawgiver. We simply wouldn’t exist without those regularities. And such regularities explain the usefulness of mathematics. P159.4 Progress on unifying theories.

The argument for God from “fine-tuning”

The ‘anthropic principle’. 69% of Americans support the argument that God must have adjusted the physical constants of the universe to permit the existence of humans. [[ occurs to me later that this presumption is only a magnitude or so away from presuming God adjusted the physical constants of the universe to permit the existence of *you*, personally. Why not? You’re very special, right? ]] Actually, only some constants of physics need to be within a narrow range: masses of particles, magnitudes of forces, etc.  If they were different, we wouldn’t be here to measure them. The ‘strong anthropic principle’ claims that the values of these constants are highly improbable. First, not all constants need to be so close to their present value; second, we don’t know how widely they might vary. And other constants might give rise to other kinds of life. Why life based on matter at all? Why not immaterial beings, like souls?

There are other explanations for fine-tuning: we got lucky. Or, there is more than one universe: the multiverse, an outcome of well-established theories. (And each universe has different physical constants.)

And some observations argue against God as cosmic fine-tuner: the sheer numbers of places in the universe where life cannot exist. (p163b) There may be gazillions of planets in the universe—but most would be uninhabitable. The number of particles. Also, life on earth will end when the sun expires in 5 billion years. [[ It’s easy to imagine conditions of a universe that would satisfy the minimal requirements of God creating a race to worship him – e.g., the biblical flat earth under a domed sky. Why the enormous universe that we actually have? ]]  And the rest of the universe itself is inhospitable to life, even most of the Earth. We don’t have a particularly comfortable home, p165t.

And, why did it take so long for humans to appear in a universe 10b years old? Theists make excuses that undermines the predictive power of theism. William Lane Craig just makes up stories (p166t). Scientists say “we don’t know”.

                The argument for God from Morality

Darwin first suggested that morality has an evolutionary basis. A century later EO Wilson suggested the same thing p167. Evolutionary psychology. This especially bothers the theists, which maintains that God is the source of the ‘moral instinct’. [[ wonder… what *other* kind of moral instinct might exist? If our morality is not inherent in our existence as a social species… what other kind of morality might just as well exist? ]]

Moral intuitions; Jonathan Haidt. Francis Collins thinks they’re unexplainable, even defying explanation by natural selection, e.g. self-sacrifice and altruism. Damon Linker too.

But there are plenty of explanations. The premises: there do seem to be human universals, cf Pinker, p169m. Some instincts are revealed only in hypothetical situations, e.g. the trolley problem. Of course there are moral variations among societies, and changes over time. P170m. Pinker. Morality may be innate, but it’s also malleable (refuting the argument it comes from God). Much of the innateness comes from learning.  “…our realization that there is no rational basis for giving ourselves moral privilege over those who belong to other groups”. P171t.

Other species exhibit moral behaviors, or sentiments—chimps have a sense of ‘fairness’ – that suggests our own behaviors did evolve. Even dogs and cats are averse to inequalities.

Other evidence comes from study of human infants, who are empathic only to familiar people, have little compassion and no altruism (which must be inculcated by parents and peers).

What about altruism? There are various definitions, but none defy explanation. For one thing, being altruistic has social benefits, enhancing one’s reputation, often with an expectation of reciprocity, especially in small groups. Another part is Peter Singer’s ‘expanding circle’ – are groups expand. p174. And we’ve understood kin selection since the 1960s.

What about true sacrifices, a soldier-on-the-grenade scenario? First, expanding circle. Second, animals will adopt litters of other animals, a hijacking of natural instincts [rather than selfless altruism]. Summary p176b. Morality is like language: we’re born with a propensity, but details depend on the culture in which we’re raised.

And if morals come from God, why do morals change? E.g. slavery, torture, disdains for women and strangers… p177t.

The argument for God from True Beliefs and Rationality

Alvin Plantinga’s argument is that our ability to hold beliefs that happen to be true can only be understood as a gift from god. This seems obviously wrong from a biologist’s pov. He argues for a ‘sense of divinity’ – though he equates this, obviously, with the Christian god and not any other god. The obvious problem with this is that we’re given to all sorts of *false* beliefs – see para p179b, and Trivers bk reference. Michael Shermer on why we believe untrue things, p180m. Plantinga explains this as having a broken ‘sense of divinity’ – because sin! (!!) – a remarkably untestable hypothesis.

Of course we can explain why some of our beliefs are rational and supported by evidence, and some are not. P181b. Humans are born with a capacity to *form* beliefs, including learning from parents and peers. Obviously accurate beliefs are necessary for some things—finding food, avoiding predators. But we’re easily fooled, as examples show. Pascal Boyer and our tendency to attribute events to conscious agents, p182m. Children in India and Indiana come to believe in very different things…

A related argument is that our brains are far more complex than anything needed in our evolutionary past. Even Alfred Russel Wallace was given to this argument for teleology. But the human brain is already complex to handle language and the social skills of living in groups. [[ the extension of this is, surely we can imagine complex skills of a brain that humans *don’t* possess… e.g. an intuitive understanding of higher mathematics. ]] And for that matter, some animals have the ability to solve problems outside their usual behavior; obviously these skills derived from skills that arose for other reasons.

                Is Science the Only “Way of Knowing”?

Critics complain that science has a monopoly on finding truth, and call this attitude ‘scientism’. Francis Collins example. Spirituality and religion; the humanities, art, music, exist despite science.

Author claims that to the extent these areas do yield knowledge, they do so in the same sense that science does: by doubt, reason, and empirical testing—‘science broadly construed’. Need to define truth and knowledge; key elements are verification and consensus. These methods work, p187m, even when applied by plumbers and electricians.

Thus history and archaeology are valid ‘ways of knowing’; even disciplines such as sociology and economics.

Math and philosophy? More problematic. Perhaps they are just tools. Sean Carroll suggests that a scientific claim must involve the possibility of a world in which it is false, and it must be testable. Math and philosophy rather involve the logical consequences of a set of premises, p188-189.

Is morality objective? Author thinks not; it’s more a matter of preferences. Which can be informed by science. Obviously some morality derived from evolution, and secular reason. But disagrees with Sam Harris (in THE MORAL LANDSCAPE).

What about subjective experience, art, movies, paintings? Author describes examples of his own favorites (Fitzgerald, Joyce), considers these as examples, i.e. imagination, not true knowledge. Have any truths been revealed for the first time by literature? Author has never gotten an example p192b-193. And of course works of art often convey different, even contradictory, ‘truths’, resembling the ‘truths’ of different faiths. And art works are dependent on the culture they exist within. And what about ‘make-believe worlds that are not tied to truth about the real world’ (in quoted para p192b) [[ — this is an excellent question; what do we ‘learn’ from works of sf/f?? perhaps a central question of my bk. We learn about other possibilities. We learn about the possible world *outside our own experience*. ]]

And there are subjective claims about ways of knowing: “I know my wife loves me”. But this is an assertion of faith, and it’s easy to imagine cases where such certainly might brand one a psycho nut-case, p194b.

And then there’s religion. Proponents of the ‘ways of knowing’ argument are ultimately concerned about this. Yet religion involves authority of ancient books, faith, subjective experience, and personal revelation – nothing like the principles of ‘science broadly construed’. Religious experiences only indicate that someone has had that experience.

The Scientism Canard

Does science overstep its bounds? Examples are all pejorative. But these purported dangers are nonexistent. There are four claims:

1, Science is the only reliable ‘way of knowing’; 2, scientism means the humanities should be subsumed by science; 3, that questions that can’t be answered by science aren’t worth considering; 4, that scientists are arrogant and reluctant to admit when they are wrong.

On the charges, author says the first is true, as he’s argued. On the second, some (EO Wilson) have argued for this; others (Baggini) disagree. Anyway such charges are trivial; surely many areas could be *informed* by the discipline of scientific insights, p199m. Third – no one author has met has said this. And fourth, other people can be arrogant too. Does science have nothing to say about the beauty of a sunset? Not so fast, p200m – perhaps one day we will understand *why* some things seem beautiful and others not, why some works of art move us and others do not. [[ the former point made by me – if everything is a manifestation of god, why isn’t a manure pile, as well as a lovely sunset, a sign of god? ]]

In the end, ‘scientism’ just means ‘science you don’t like’ (Dennett). One might as well define ‘religionism’ to mean “the tendency of religion to overstep its boundaries by making unwarranted statements about the universe, or by demanding unearned authority.” With no lack of examples, p201m.

Then we have half a dozen of the most common criticisms of science by believers.

Science can’t prove that God doesn’t exist

Yes of course you can’t disprove *anything* (or prove; evidence is always provisional). But you can observe that, if god is theistic, having certain traits and interacting with the world, and, if we take proof as “evidence so strong you would bet your life savings on it”, then yes we can dismiss the idea of god. “If a thing is claimed to exist, and its existence has consequences, then the absence of those consequences is evidence against the existence of the thing.” Parallel to Carl Sagan’ idea of a fire-breathing dragon in his garage, which happens to be invisible, etc etc, so that it cannot be detected. Then why believe it to be true? There are plenty of things you prove negatives. Leprechauns in your garden? Not absolutely, but the absence of any such evidence leads to the provisional conclusion that they don’t exist.

That is: If the claims of the omnibenevolent, omnipotent, and omniscient god are true, we should see evidence. Rather, we see no miracles or miracle cures in today’s world, no confirmed effects of prayer [studies have been done], no passages in ancient scripture that show knowledge about the real world other than what was available to people alive at the time, and the observation that science has disproved many of the truth claims of scripture. P204t.

Science is based on faith

This is a matter of semantics, on casual definitions of ‘faith’. Granted, even some scientists claim this (Paul Davies).

But this obscures the obvious fact the science *works*; it doesn’t need blind adherence to some dogma. And everyone uses the conclusions in everyday life – nice para p207t.

Scientists don’t use the word. Common uses such as “I have faith the sun will rise tomorrow” are based on *experience*. Scientists have ‘faith’ in the conclusions of other scientists based on evidence, or reputation. Whereas theologians study only other theologians… and not any kind of evidence p209.

Some say scientists have ‘faith’ in physical laws. Or in the value of reason in determining truth.

Again, faith isn’t involved. These presumptions work because the *evidence* shows them to work.

Religion Gave Rise to Science

Some claim science was the product of religion. Evidence is sketchy; even so, so what? In fact some parts of science arose in other areas of the world; and there was a 1000 year gap between the rise of Christianity and the rise of modern science. And we know that Christianity certainly impeded science, condemning heretics, Bruno and Galileo. Yes, many famous scientists of past centuries were religious, but everyone was in those days. The advance of modern science is the idea of naturalism, set firmly into place only the past century.

Science Does Bad Things

As bad as religion? Not much of a defense of faith. Weapons, nuclear and chemical, are generally cited. Anyway, the charge is against ‘science’, not individual scientists, who didn’t do these things. There are always bad people who use whatever is at hand to do bad things. Might as well blame basic tool-making, since knives and hammers have been used to kill people too. It is faith itself that corrupts people, leading to bad behavior. Religions relies on moral codes supposedly reflecting God’s will; the idea of eternal reward; and the notion of absolute truth, p219b. Famous Steven Weinberg quote: “With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil—that takes religion.”

Physicists do not kill each over about their competing theories.

Science is fallible and its results are unreliable

Haven’t scientific ‘truths’ been overturned? Isn’t science sometimes wrong? Well, yes – but the point is, science is self-correcting; that’s what’s right about it. There have even been frauds in science – Piltdown Man – that are exposed *by other scientists*. And most scientific conclusions these days are intact: it’s doubtful anything will overturn continental drift, evolution, the speed of light. And none of these criticisms make religion any more credible; religion has *never* been right in its claims about the universe. P224b.

Subtitled “Why Science and Religion are Incompatible”
(Viking, May 2015, xxii + 311pp, including 46pp of acknowledgements, notes, references,and index)

(Earlier: post 1; post 2)

Summary: Chapter 3: Why Accommodationism Fails

This chapter explains why you can’t have your religion and your science too. Trying to do so leads to cognitive dissonance.

Reasons people would want to do this include the belief that religion is good for society; by taking deism to be true; by supposing that all searches for truth must be compatible; by watering religion down to be mere ‘spirituality’; that passages in scripture anticipate scientific findings. Stephen Jay Gould’s NOMA, non-overlapping magisterial, was a prominent attempt at accommodationism, but it failed along these grounds.

Science does not limit itself to ‘natural’ phenomena, and has studied things that could have produced evidence of the supernatural, and conspicuously has not. Scripture could have included revelations about information unknown to humans at the time they were written (e.g. about the planets, or DNA), and did not. Most religious people say nothing would convince them to abandon their faith. And often for practical, social reason — doing so would upend their life and isolate them from their family and community. (I point I’ve made several times.)

The problem with miracles is that they have no corroboration. As Hume proposed, all miracles are more likely fraud, error, or delusion. [[ Not a Coyne topic, but the way the Catholic Church identifies “saints,” as the one just recently, is the essence of blinkered and motivated thinking. ]]

Author considers three test cases where science might seem to undermine religious beliefs. Adam and Eve: Evolution and genetics show the story to be nonsense; many believers accept the story merely as metaphor. Some do not, e.g. the Catholic Church. Mormonism: It makes claims about tribes from the middle east coming to America 2600 years ago, and simply rejects DNA studies as meaningless. Theistic evolution, the idea that evolution was ‘guided’ by God: but science doesn’t need the premise; people resort to it to save themselves from the idea that morality arose through natural selection. [[ Which many other books have explained how it has. ]]

Nor can the religious depend on the idea that the evolution of humans was inevitable (as if built into creation by God). There are examples of evolutionary convergence (e.g. eyes) but other examples where it did not but might have. Evolution is contingent; re-run cosmic history and humans might well never have evolved.

Similarly, the history of life shows many dead ends [[ most species that ever lived are extinct ]]. Why would God direct that? Theological rationales amount to special pleading.

Theistic evolution is an unnecessary add-on driven not by evidence but by the emotional needs of the faithful.

Comments

There *is* cognitive dissonance between people wanting to cling to their faiths — if only for social reasons — and the reckoning of what is real as determine by science and expressed in technology, and the world we live in. I could expand, but I think I’ve been expanding on this theme for years, on this blog. Coyne’s book isn’t telling intelligent people things they don’t already know.

Raw Notes: Ch3, Why Accommodationism Fails

Acc. (accommodationism) is a solution to the cognitive dissonance of those who accept science but cling to religious myths. Some of these author calls ‘faitheists’, who realize religion is false but see it as good for society (p98t). One motive for acc is to be nonthreatening in the fight against creationism.

Varieties: Logical, i.e. pure deism, that there could be god that never interferes with the universe; rare.

Mental: the idea that since many people seem to embrace both religion and science, they *must* be compatible. Examples are Francis Collins. But that such people hold two worldviews in their mind, a co*existence* that is not the same as compatibility.

Syncretism: an attempted unification, especially by stretching the idea of religion to be mere ‘spirituality’. Einstein’s famous quote (p101m) wasn’t about what most people think of as God; it was more a sort of pantheism. Similarly, Owen Gingerich p102m and his awe at the stars. That’s a very weak kind of religion, but people like Elaine Ecklund keep at it (via Templeton), doing surveys to demonstrate various levels of ‘spirituality’ among scientists, as if to equate that with religious belief.

Some argue since both religion and science aspire to be truth, they *must* be compatible; truth cannot contradict truth. Thus scientific creationism, which twists evidence of an ancient earth to match the biblical story, with absurd results. (Examples of their arguments p104). Author taught a course about it… [[ the problem here is that the claims of different religions contradiction each other, so they *can’t* all be true. ]]

Similarly Muslims insist the Quran is literally accurate, and cite certain passages as anticipating modern science…very vaguely. P105

The most prominent example of acc is Stephen Jay Gould’s NOMA – nonoverlapping magisteria: science studies the natural world, religion concerns issues of meaning. The idea had been floated before. But his argument fails: it dilutes religion (by defining it as something that does not make existence claims), and misrepresents the activities of scientists and philosophers.

                Science vs the Supernatural

Author makes key point that science is not, by definition, concerned with studying only ‘natural’ phenomena, i.e. ruling out the supernatural or paranormal. In fact science has studied things that might have produced evidence of the supernatural, like ESP or prayer – and the results were conspicuously lacking. List of 7 example studies that would demonstrate the supernatural, p114 [[ a very hand list that undermines all of such claims ]]. A prominent one concerns prayer, about which studies have been done. Theists make excuses – e.g. God won’t let himself be tested – in classic examples of confirmation bias; you can be sure they’d trumpet any results that matched their predetermined beliefs.

What evidence would demonstrate the supernatural? Perhaps a miracle cure that actually regrew an amputated limb.

Similarly in Sagan’s bk (p118t) he suggested that scripture *could* have provided evidence of god, had there been passages with information that was unknown to humans at the time, e.g. concerning light or the structure of DNA. The absence of such evidence is revealing.

Some nonbelievers think there is no evidence, even in principle, that could convince them (cf powerful aliens), but author presents a scenario that would persuade him, p119t (i.e. huge angels literally appearing in the sky… )

In contrast, what would convince religious people to abandon their faith? Most will say, *nothing*. –significant quote p120t about why: being religious has practical social utility…:

“As a purely practical matter, I have compelling reasons to believe in God. My parents are deeply committed Christians and would be devastated were I to reject my faith. My wife and children believe in God, and we attend church together regularly. Most of my friends are believers. … Abandoning belief in God would be disruptive, sending my life completely off the rails.” (Karl Giberson)

[[ this is exactly my point above ]]

                What about Miracles?

The problems are that most of them occurred in the past, and have no corroboration, while in principle ancient events can be corroborated by independent sources, e.g. Julius Caesar. In contrast, the Resurrection is sourced only by the gospels, written decades later. Whereas the book of Mormon purportedly has *eye-witness* testimony about the golden plates and the angel Moroni.

Hume proposed that all miracles were more likely fraud, error, or delusion. Parsimony: what is more likely? The Shroud of Turin and the weeping statue have both shown to be frauds. Alternative story for how gospels were written, p123, the disappointed followers revised their story, just as do disillusioned millennialists when the world doesn’t end.

The Jesus Seminar determined there was no credible evidence for the resurrection, and warned of “the temptation to find what they would like to find…”

                Three Test Cases

Some religious beliefs are negotiable – e.g. jettisoning literal belief in Jonah and the giant fish – while others are not. So what happens when science undermines those?

                Adam and Eve:

Christianity relies on the story of how sin came into the world, requiring Jesus to appear and be crucified to redress our sins. Many people take this literally, but science completely undermines it. First—evolution. Second—by analyzing genetic diversity, we can trace certain chromosomes back hundreds of thousands of years; and furthermore that there were no fewer than some 12,000 individuals some 60,000 years ago in Africa from which modern humans are descended.

Responses? Outrage. The Catholic Church holds firm. A few liberal theologians try to construe the story as, e.g. god chose two people out of a community to start, or that two suddenly became ‘aware’ of god, and so on. Or that it was metaphor.

                Mormonism…

A similar problem: Mormons believe native Americans are descended from four tribes who came to the new world from the middle east some 2600 years ago. Again, archaeology differs. The church simply rejects that DNA studies mean anything.

                Theistic evolution

That is, that evolution happened but was ‘guided’ by God in one way or another. Science is naturalistic and does not require any such premise. But it bothers people because, among other things, “evolution means that human morality, rather than being imbued in us by God, somehow arose via natural processes: biological evolution involving natural selection on behavior, and cultural evolution involving our ability to calculate, foresee, and prefer the results of different behaviors.” –p134.2

Some accept evolution – except for human beings. Some suggest God intervened at certain points; others believe that evolution was set up specifically to produce human beings. The C church believes god intervened to insert a soul. These ideas verge on creationism.

All of these ideas are superfluous to science, and scientists have rejected them. (Even complexity isn’t always favored by natural selection; examples of worms and skunks.)

                Was the Evolution of Humans Inevitable?

If science can show that the evolution of humans was inevitable, this would make easier for the theists. But: there’s no such thing as ‘empty niche’. Nor can we predict what new creatures will evolve. We do have evidence of ‘evolutionary convergence’ though. Examples: eyes; white fur. Simon Conway Morris; Kenneth Miller extend this idea to the inevitability of human beings.

Author thinks not. Many examples where convergence did *not* occur. Why did human evolve only in Africa? Gould’s book Wonderful Life is best proponent of the nonevitability of evolution. [[ That book concerned a separate lineage, quite different from amphibians and mammals, that evolved for a while then died out. ]] Evolution is contingent; depends on unpredictable of climate change, meteor strikes, etc. Yet in principle were not those things predetermined by physical conditions? Except for the unpredictability of quantum mechanics. So if we were to repeat the Big Bang… it’s unlikely even Earth would exist again, let alone life on it. And mutations are also subject to quantum indeterminacy. So humans were not inevitable…

And so theistic evolution can be ignored, p147.4

                Theological Problems with Theistic Evolution

Other problems: why would God direct evolution into so many dead ends? Again, theologians come up with answers, e.g. evolution gets God off the hook for ‘natural evil’ because he didn’t design them that way. Francisco Ayala. But this is special pleading. Alvin Plantinga even suggests Satan meddled in evolution. Animals suffering for the sin of a primate?

Theistic evolution is an unnecessary add-on driven not by evidence but by the emotional needs of the faithful. The topic makes the error of confusing logical possibilities with probabilities.

Subtitled “Why Science and Religion are Incompatible”
(Viking, May 2015, xxii + 311pp, including 46pp of acknowledgements, notes, references,and index)

(Earlier: post 1)

Summary: Chapter 2: What’s Incompatible?

This chapter considers science, religion, their incompatibility, and their conflicts of method, outcome, and philosophy.

Science is “a method for understanding how the universe (matter, our bodies and behavior, the cosmos, and so on) actually works.” Scientists are subject to confirmation bias just like everyone else, but the scientific toolset is designed to correct errors. Scientific truth is always provisional, it can change; in a sense scientists can prove a theory wrong, but never right. Still, fields like evolution have so much evidence they are taken as true, especially since it’s easy to imagine evidence that would overturn it (none of which has been found). Science must incorporate falsifiability, and be open to alternative explanations. If something is wrong, it will be found out quickly. That’s why it’s silly to think that evolutionists conspire to prop up a theory they know to be wrong. On the contrary, anyone who did overturn it would gain instant fame. Science requires replication of results; it involves parsimony; it lives with uncertainty. It’s the same everywhere in the world.

Religion is, to choose a common definition: “Action of conduct indicating belief in, obedience to, and reverence for a god, gods, or similar superhuman power; the performance of religious rites or observances.” Characteristics include theism, a moral system, and the idea that God interacts directly with you in a personal relationship. Author considers issues about whether religion looks for truth (it *claims* truth), how most believers believe in a literal (not metaphorical) god; that religions make many empirical claims (but different ones from religion to religion); that many take these claims literally while some (the accommodations) insist some are to be read metaphorically (but how do you tell which ones?); how most people simply reject facts that conflict with their faith; how evolution in particular is a big problem for such people; and how many are religious not for the truth claims but because for them religion is a community (and are in fact quite ignorant of the details of their doctrines).

The incompatibility of science and religion involve their different methods for getting knowledge about reality, their different ways of assessing the reliability of that knowledge; and their different conclusions about the universe.

Conflicts of Method include evidence on the one hand and revelation, authority, and dogma on the other. Science relies on principle of falsifiability, while religion resorts to apologetics. Religion cherry-picks its truths, turns scientific necessities into theological virtues, and fabricates answers to hard or insoluble questions. Religion hijacks the evolved human tendency to be trustworthy when young. Your religion is mostly an accident of your birth. If there is ‘one true religion’, as a matter of chance, it’s likely not yours.

Conflicts of Outcome: why don’t the methods of faith correspond to the results of the methods of science? There seems to be no verified facts about reality that came from scripture or revelation that was later confirmed by science.

Conflict of Philosophy: Science doesn’t presume naturalism; it’s a conclusion arising from the success of science to explain things without resorting to supernatural explanations. If certain supernatural claims were true, e.g. about the efficacy of prayer, science would detect evidence of those effects. It never does. The provisional conclusion of science is that no supernatural powers or entities exist. This is ‘philosophical naturalism.’

Comments

On one level this discussion is obvious and straightforward, if not to the religious (as I alluded to yesterday); but there’s another level that this book and others like it don’t explore. Which involves: *Why* are people attracted to supernatural explanations? About which a book could be written. And second, how, I think, that to a large degree it doesn’t matter to most people so much what’s **true** about the universe, as that one shares a philosophy and a submission to a particular doctrine with one’s family and community – as a bolster against other tribes.

Raw Notes. There are lots of good bits from these 70 pages of the book that my summary above doesn’t do justice to.

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Ch2, What’s Incompatible?

Quote from Natalie Angier about the Ph.D. who wrestles powerpoints by day and reads internally contradictory holy books by night and think both are convincing.

How author learned about science: by being thrust into Harvard where everyone argued, trying to pick holes in every argument, finding problems. Not personal attacks, but a kind of quality control…

What Is Science?

Not just an activity, or a set of provisional facts. Science is “a method for understanding how the universe (matter, our bodies and behavior, the cosmos, and so on) actually works.” (p28.7) A set of tools.

Feynman: The first principle is that you must not fool yourself—and you are the easiest person to fool. P28b

Scientists like everyone else are subject to confirmation bias.

Author equates truth and fact (p29b); scientific truth isn’t absolute, but can change. Big examples: geocentrism, N rays.

In a sense scientists can prove a theory wrong, but never right. Still fields like evolution have so much evidence they are taken as true, especially since it’s easy to imagine evidence that would overturn it (none of which has been found).

What are the components of the scientific toolkit? The common one is ‘hypothesis, test, confirm’. But it’s not always like that. You have to gather facts before you can form a hypothesis. And some topics don’t allow tests, but observations—cosmology. And along with predictions, theories can make ‘retrodictions’, making sense of previously known facts. And science is quantitative.

And science incorporates the idea of falsifiability; there must always be a way of showing a theory to be wrong. While the faithful make up excuses for, e.g. ‘God will not be tested.’

Scientists also ask, are the alternative explanations? Could something have gone wrong? If there is, it will be found out quickly. This is why it’s silly to think that evolutionists conspire to prop up a theory they know to be wrong. On the contrary, anyone who did overturn it would gain instant fame… p35

Science also involves replication of results.

And science entails parsimony, the idea that the simplest explanation for something is usually best.

And science lives with uncertainty. We don’t know how life began. Scientists live with it; Feynman quote p38.

There is also the international character of science, its collectivity. Science is the same everywhere in the world. (The Bible has a scientific test about which god is real, Baal or Yahweh, p39m).

Broadly speaking science is any endeavor that uses the tools of reason, observation, and experiment, including historians, biblical scholars, car mechanics. Story about Stephen Jay Gould encountering a plumber, p40-41, using logical means to find a leak in a very scientific manner, but also claiming to be a staunch creationist.

                What Is Religion?

There are many definitions, but author chooses a common one that corresponds to the three Abrahamic faiths: “Action of conduct indicating belief in, obedience to, and reverence for a god, gods, or similar superhuman power; the performance of religious rites or observances.”

Three characteristics: theism, that god interacts with the world; embrace of a moral system (laid out for obedience by that god); and the idea that God interacts directly with you in a personal relationship. We’ll focus on the empirical claims made by religions, whether they are the claims of the church, of theologians, or of regular believers.

                Does religion look for truth?

It seems obvious that religion assumes the existence of God; but some theologians minimize this, claiming religion is more about morals or building a community. Examples of Francis Spufford and Reza Aslan (p44t), who reduce holy books to collections of metaphors – in contrast of course to the vast majority of ordinary believers.

In contrast, the Bible makes empirical claims about god – examples with comments from Richard Swinburne and Mikael Stenmark. And John Polkinghorne, who emphasized the need for an empirical grounding of faith. Ian Barbour. Francis Collins.

                Existence Claims: Is There a God?

Belief in gods is universal and strong. Surveys—93% in Indonesia, 4% in Japan. In the US, 70%. Most of these believe in an involved and intervening god. Many are quite literal. More intellectual believers have more nebulous and impersonal descriptions – Richard Swinburne, Alvin Plantinga – a spirit or force about whom we can say little. But most believers are very specific about his attributes.

                Other Empirical Claims of Religion

Long list from the Nicene Creed of specific claims. A monotheistic God, but in three parts; the creation of the universe; his son, born of a virgin, sacrificed to redeem believers from sin, and so on. Heaven and hell.

Of course these conflict with the claims of other faiths – Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, who don’t recognize Jesus as the Messiah. Etc etc.

Again, polls show literalism of these claims is widespread. P51. Especially in the US, but in Britain too – Julian Baggini thought otherwise, did his own poll, and changed his mind. P52. Muslims are especially pious and literalistic – about God and Muhammad, about how the Quran should be read literally, word for word, p53m.

Accommodationists typically attribute religious violence as due to politics or social dysfunction, an idea which simply extends the claim that religions don’t involve truth claims about the universe. Pinker vs Wieseltier.

                Is Scripture Literal or Allegorical?

A recurrent theme is theology is that as science has disproved scriptural claims, these claims have morphed into being mere allegories. Liberal believers say things like, the Bible is not a textbook of science. Some claim the idea of literalism is a recent phenomenon. Andrew Sullivan, claiming that no one with a brain can think the story of Adam and Eve is meant literally. Yet Catholicism has insisted on it. Other references of same. Aquinas discussing Saint Augustine. Augustine was a literalist about many things since refuted by science: the young earth, creation, Noah and his Ark.

And if you do claim that certain parts of the Bible are to be read metaphorically – how do you tell which parts are metaphorical and which are meant to be real? “This is particularly difficult for Christians, because the historical evidence for Jesus—that is, for a real person around whom the myth accreted—is thin. And evidence for Jesus as the son of God is unconvincing, resting solely on the assertions of the Bible and interpretations of people writing decades after the events described in the Gospels.” P59t

And most people, according to surveys, would simply reject facts if they conflicted with their faith.

                Evolution: The Biggest Problem

The clearest example of religion’s resistance to science is evolution—which has implications that “are distressing to many believers”. Polls show evolution is rejected by believers. “Yet when it comes to evolution, many Americans remain in the Bronze Age.” P60.2  It’s not an artifact of ignorance of evidence – look at all the science popularizers like Dawkins, Sagan, etc etc. Americans deny evolution because of religion. Many religious people say things like “Nothing could make me give up my beliefs.”

                Can You Have Faith Without Truth Claims?

Many, maybe most, people are religious not because of arguments about God and scripture, but because for them religion is a community, about feelings and emotions. Surveys have shown many religious people are in fact quite ignorant of the details of their doctrines. (p61b). Jonathan Haidt sees religious communality as primary.

But would they remain religious if claims about Jesus or Joseph Smith were undermined? We do know that many who abandon religion do so because of losing belief in its doctrines. P62m.

Theologians downplay empirical claims – except when talking to ‘regular’ believers. Example Alvin Plantinga.

The Incompatibility

Not logical, or practical; rather, “mutually intolerant” p64m. Author claims science and religion are *in*compatible because they have 1) different methods for getting knowledge about reality; 2) different ways of assessing the reliability of that knowledge; and 3) arrive at different conclusions about the universe.

Religious ‘knowledge’ not only conflicts with scientific knowledge, but also knowledge from other religions.

Gould’s idea they are complementary fails on two counts.

Issues of methodology can be summarized by asking “How would I know if I was wrong?”

Conflicts of Method

Science relies on evidence, and can imagine evidence that would prove a truth wrong; religion relies of revelation, authority, and dogma. Some religious claims are untestable because they occurred in the past, but science can point out the absence of evidence for such claims. Religion relies on confirmation bias, starting with one was taught in childhood, then accepting only those facts that support those prejudices. ‘Apologetics’ work to defend religion against counter-arguments.

                Faith

Faith is the confident belief in something for which there is insufficient evidence to persuade all reasonable people of that belief. Also dictionary definition p67m Faith is routinely regarded as a virtue; doubting Thomas. Fideism is the idea that faith is hostile to reason. It is taken as a virtue to have faith in things that are absurd. Even today, the Pope denigrates curiosity. Martin Luther said reason was the enemy of faith. Believers sometimes accuse scientists of having ‘faith’, as if this makes both just as bad as the other; more on this in chapter 4.

                Authority as the Arbiter of Truth

Church dogmas or theologians are the arbiters of religious truth; science has no equivalents. No texts or scientists are regarded as inerrant. They have confidence in some authorities, because they have earned that trust.

Some religious dogma has been settled *by vote* over the centuries – examples among Catholics p71. Such changes don’t come from new information, but from secular currents in society. Hell is now seen as ‘separation from God’, not an underground barbecue. Mormons changed their policy on blacks.

                Falsifiability.

Religion would welcome evidence if it validated their claims; but when evidence doesn’t support their claims, they usually result to apologetics. E.g. resurrection of Jesus; William Lane Craig states that nothing could shake his belief. Justin Thacker. These statements are irrational. Karl Giberson, about how some claims are unfalsifiable. Needless to say, this is not how science works.

                Cherry-picking your truths from scripture or authority

Critics of atheists claim that the Bible isn’t a book of science. Yet many believers think the Bible does give us facts. But to think parts of the Bible are mere parable begs the question of how to decide which parts are which; by implication, the literalists are more intellectually honest. We can’t know what the Bible’s authors meant when they wrote it; most of it reads as if relating literal truths. That’s how many people read it, and Quran. Any story in the Bible can be literal or a metaphor; take your pick. In practice, the things that science has falsified tend to become metaphors…

                Turning Scientific Necessities into Theological Virtues

Some apologists will claim theology is made better once science has ‘corrected’ parts of scripture. Evolution makes life so much more interesting!

                Fabricating Answers to Hard or Insoluble Questions

Why is God hidden? They have answers for that too, though they make little sense and depend on wordplay. Some simply reject the need for evidence. Immortality? Natural evil.

                Applying Different Standards…

Truth claims of Scientology, Mormonism, Christian Science. Most believers reject these, but only because these three religions are fairly new. People don’t react to their own religions the same way because they were indoctrinated through family and friends. “Religion has hijacked the evolved tendency…” p83.8 Your religion is mostly an accident of your birth, and as an adult you have are emotionally invested in its truth, and so subject to confirmation bias.

More examples of various religious claims. There are a dozen ‘major’ religions, but thousands of branches. Religions are just incompatible with science, they’re incompatible with each other.

There might be one true religion, but as a matter of chance, it’s likely not yours. Don’t you care if you’re following the right one? John Loftus and the ‘outside test for faith’ p86t. [[ Comment I had here moved above in this post. ]]

The various scientific disciplines share the same form and toolkit of science.

Scientific Truth is Progressive and Cumulative; Theological ‘Truth’ Isn’t.

Scientific progress is apparent and common across the world. Theology changes, but doesn’t advance. Hell is reconfigured as ‘separation from God’. The C Church eliminates its list of banned books. And morality advanced, as society advances.

But religion hasn’t come any closer to understanding the divine; whether gods exist; whether there is one or many, and so on. There are fundamentalists and apophatic theologians…. Changes in theology are driven by science or changes in secular culture. Religious morality is usually one step behind secular morality (p88.7)

Yet there are apologists who claim all this as a virtue; that theology hasn’t changed means it’s reached its goal of perceiving truth better than science has – J.P. Moreland, p89m.

                Conflicts of Outcome

If the methods of faith were reliable, the results should correspond to the results of the methods of science. But they don’t. Disproved claims of religion include many scientific claims, as well as historic claims (no evidence for the exodus of Israelites from Egypt, or of the miracles surrounding the Resurrection).

If such ‘natural truths’ cannot be verified, why credit the harder-to-test ‘divine truths’?

Author has challenged anyone to give him a single verified fact about reality that came from scripture or revelation that was later confirmed by science.

                Conflicts of Philosophy

The issue is whether gods are even a realistic possibility.

Naturalism is not a premise of science; it’s a conclusion arising from the success of science to explain things without resorting to supernatural explanations.

In fact, scientists like Newton did invoke supernatural explanations, e.g. God. It was later scientists who developed explanations that did not require those – famous anecdote about Laplace p92.

There are some who claim science can *only* be about what is not supernatural – Lewontin p93t – but in principle science is open the confirming supernatural events, e.g. studies about the efficacy of prayer (or of ESP, etc.). There *could* be evidence from such studies – but there is not. Thus the provisional conclusion of science is that supernatural powers or entities do not exist; an attitude called ‘philosophical naturalism’. [provisional: see 95b]