Dan Sarewitz – Lies We Must Live With
December 13th, 2006Posted by: Roger Pielke, Jr.
Dan Sarewitz, a professor at ASU and faculty affiliate at the CU Center for Science and Technology Policy Research, has penned a thought-provoking essay on science and religion in the latest CSPO Newsletter. Here is an excerpt, but do read the whole thing (and bring your thinking cap).
Now the most serious conflicts among humans are all, at root, conflicts about how to balance a variety of moral concerns such as justice, equality, and liberty. So, when scientists argue that the world would be better off without religion, then they are also arguing that humans would be better able to solve their deepest and most vexing problems in the absence of religion. A slightly different way to make the scientific claim is this: Moral discourse among those who don’t believe in ultimate meaning will yield more satisfactory results for society than if such discourse also includes believers.
But what difference does it make if you trace your morals and values to a non-existent supernatural authority, or if you trace them to biochemically and culturally determined cognitive processes? There may be a psychological difference—the difference between delusion and realism—but neither position, according to the scientific perspective, can make a claim to moral authority; both are irrational in the scientific sense. So the key point here cannot be the fact that believers are delusional about the source of their beliefs, rather it must be that, in being delusional, believers’ beliefs are less good than nonbelievers’ beliefs.
Why, then, should scientists expect that the world would be a better place if moral discourse was dominated by people who don’t believe in god than if it was dominated by believers? The answer is obvious: because the scientists making this argument are people who don’t believe in god! So of course they think that if they made all the important choices the world would be better!! They’d be making the choices!!! In other words, this is a political claim, not an a priori statement about rationality. This must be the case because there is, from the serious scientific perspective, no authoritatively rational solution to moral dilemmas, there are only political solutions. Put somewhat differently, science’s claim to ultimate knowledge is precisely what robs it of any legitimate claim to special privilege in public, and moral, discourse.
Dan ends the piece as follows:
The challenge here to scientism is as profound as the challenge to fundamentalism. From a scientific perspective, views rooted in supernatural explanations are views rooted in lies. This may be factually correct, but the rigors of pluralistic discourse demand that these lies have a seat at the table, right along side the neurologically and evolutionarily contingent preferences of the highly rational. This is not a matter of principle but of logic tempered by experience. There is no reason to believe that good moral reasoning derives from the scientific rigor of one’s views of ultimate causation. There are some lies that society cannot do without.
The antidote to irrationality is not its contrary, but its plural. It’s about inclusiveness, pluralism, democracy, not about rationality versus irrationality. The problem with fundamentalists is not God but fundamentalism. Conflating fundamentalism with all of religion is like conflating particle physics with all of science. Fundamentalists and physicists might like to claim that they alone occupy the solid ground of ultimate authority, but the rest of us know differently. A world run by like-thinking scientists is as horrific to contemplate as one run by like-thinking evangelicals.
The only questions I have is, when is this guy going to get a MacArthur Grant already?
Read the whole thing.
December 13th, 2006 at 6:31 pm
Interesting. Close to brilliant, even. For a broader question, what is it about media (including the internet) that selects for extreme garbadge and against reason and sensibility?
December 13th, 2006 at 9:00 pm
As a Christian scientist (but definitely not a Christian Scientist), I found Dan’s column interesting but perhaps not as profound as you did. He would benefit from reading a bit of recent work by Benedict XVI on the integration of faith and reason. Ratzinger is a genuine scholar. This soil has been plowed before.
In any case, it is a welcome development that an avowed atheistic scientist would recognize scientism as the religion it has become, and more importantly, grow nervous about the implications of its hegemonic claims over the decisions of men and mankind.
Where I disagree with Dan is I do not see a contest between religion and science, but rather a contest between religions. Properly understood, neither Judaism nor Christianity make claims about science and the natural world. But scientism makes very strong claims about the supernatural world — i.e., that it does not exist; that people who nevertheless believe that this world exists are delusional; and that by virtue of their delusions they do not warrant serious regard. That is far more dangerous a threat to liberty and justice than anything posed by Judaism or Christianity.
Dan also does the debate no favors by his supercilious characterization of belief as “lies,” albeit “lies we must live with.” A lie is not mere error, something about which scientists are expert at least when it materializes in others. A lie is a statement made in knowing disregard of its falsehood. Jewish and Christian believers cannot be liars; that term must be reserved for those who falsely profess belief, not those who profess beliefs that atheists consider false.
Science has nothing to say about the supernatural world because this world lies beyond reason and testable hypotheses. Thus, science cannot disprove God’s existence. Yet, for some reason many atheistic scientists have no qualms committing the scientific error of denying the existence of a phenomenon they cannot refute using scientific methods! That this error must be known to them means they tread very close to lying.
But I refuse to level that charge. Rather, I take it as a matter of religious faith among atheistic scientists that God does not exist. It’s an ironic religious faith, to be sure, but since it cannot be falsified using scientific methods, it certanly qualifies as religion. The fact that it’s also ironic makes it post-modern, and cool.
December 14th, 2006 at 2:19 pm
“Rather, I take it as a matter of religious faith among atheistic scientists that God does not exist. It’s an ironic religious faith, to be sure, but since it cannot be falsified using scientific methods, it certanly qualifies as religion.”
Do I read you correctly that since God cannot be falsified by scientific means (an assumption I wish to see proven, or at least demonstrated as reasonable), that a belief in anything that cannot be falsified is religious?
If religion, when properly understood, does not speak to the natural world, why have this argument about the existence of God in the first place, if you are insisting on couching it in scientific terms? Said another way, if religion does not speak to the natural world, why worry about arguments trying to place God in the natural world? Why make those arguments in the first place? If God is not supposed to be in the natural world, why should it matter (or be an article of faith/non-naturalness) if some only concern themselves with the natural world?
December 14th, 2006 at 4:34 pm
RB wrote:
>>Thus, science cannot disprove God’s existence. Yet, for some reason many atheistic scientists have no qualms committing the scientific error of denying the existence of a phenomenon they cannot refute using scientific methods! That this error must be known to them means they tread very close to lying. <<
No, the argument proceeds from a false premise. Science can neither prove a God exists (there may be more than one after all), nor can it disprove that existence, thus a God is outside of the realm of science and in the realm of belief. It is therefore not error and there is no lying in there anywhere. So the mixture of the arguments above can’t hold.
So, coming back to Dan’s point: there are different ways of knowing. Rationalism is merely one way, but we aren’t rational all the time (utility maximizing agents too), so our decisionmaking is therefore not always rational. Just look at our national foreign policy.
December 14th, 2006 at 5:17 pm
I think religion, in its irrationality and infalsifiability, can be used to justify acts that would be deemed as revolting by any standard. Science does not have this luxury.
There may be more than one way of ‘justifying’ these acts, but I think the removal of one of them has to be a good thing.
December 14th, 2006 at 7:16 pm
As a scientist and an atheist, I hold that the onus is not on me to prove that a god or gods do not exist but on those who do believe, to prove that he/she/it does or they do exist. Of course I cannot prove that a specific god or gods with certain properties exists but there is an infinite number of things that could be postulated to exist that it is impossible for me to prove do not exist. These include fairies at the bottom of my garden and Bertram Russell’s orbiting teapot, to name but two. Assuming for argument that a supreme being does exist, how can we know anything about him/her/it? If we claim that he/she/it speaks to us directly we may be led to commit with conviction all kinds of irrational acts such as flying planes into The World Trade Center if we are Jihadists, or leading this country into an attack on Iraq for nonexistent reasons if we are the current president of the United States. Holy books such as the Bible and the Koran are full of mutually contradictory statements and one must be a cafeteria christian or marketplace muslim to work out from them any kind of moral code acceptable to most people in the 21st century. There are literally thousands of different religions with conficting views. Most people hold that all but one of them are invalid. I hold that they are all invalid.
As rationality and the scientific method have been applied to natural phenomena over the last several centuries, more and more of the way the universe behaves has become understandable. We are left with “A God of the Gaps” and these gaps are becoming smaller and smaller. Unfortunately, the large fraction of the people in this country who still follow these bronze age myths and their later developments as reality have stood and stand in the way or every advance that can be made. If humanity is to survive and our lot is to improve, we must give up our religious fairy tales, look reality squarely in the face, and begin behaving rationally.
December 14th, 2006 at 8:56 pm
“Yet, for some reason many atheistic scientists have no qualms committing the scientific error of denying the existence of a phenomenon they cannot refute using scientific methods!”
Actually, the thought that there is no God *can* be falsified by scientific methods. If God were to write Her name in the stars (in Esperanto, of course
), then those who think there is no God would be shown to be incorrect.
December 14th, 2006 at 9:51 pm
David,
I mean to say that atheistic scientists do not rely on science as the basis for their atheism. They cannot, for there are no hypotheses which can be tested that would disprove the appropriate null. Atheism is not agnosticism; rather, it is a conviction that God does not exist. That conviction cannot be achieved through scientific means. It must be obtained some other way. I suggested that this is analogous to religious belief.
Now, I see nothing wrong with that and so I do not intend the observation to be pejorative. But it does seem to me that atheistic scientists are angered by any suggestion that they believe anything that cannot be described rationally. Yet clearly they do, for a belief in the absence of God is per se belief, and it is not obtained by scientific method.
Dan,
I say it is error to make a *scientific* claim that God does not exist without relying solely on scientific methods. The use of any other methods makes the claim nonscientific. And that’s quite all right with me — just don’t hide behind the logic of science to reach a conclusion that cannot be supported by science.
I’m unsure how to respond to “TearTheRoofOffTheSucker”, whose response is neither well considered nor well written. It is true that religion has been used to justify revolting acts. But it is objectively false to say that science has not done the same. Think of eugenics. Do not reply that eugenics is but a false science; it was not considered false when it was popular among scientists.
Some religious traditions posit the existence of absolute, transcendent truth. Therefore, acts can be judged according to a constant moral standard. Science, in contrast, science denies absolute, transcendent truth. As Dan Sarewitz wrote, “there is, from the serious scientific perspective, no authoritatively rational solution to moral dilemmas…” that is, everything is subject to refutation and revision should persuasive evidence be uncovered. For the atheistic scientist, there is an exception to this rule because there is one absolute, transcendent truth: God does not exist.
Sceptical Chemist,
As an atheist you are entitled to “hold that the onus is not on me to prove that a god or gods do not exist but on those who do believe.” Fair enough. But as a Christian I did not pick this fight. I have nothing I need to prove to the satisfaction of scientists, for there are no scientific facts I wish to challenge based on my religious belief.
Rather, it is atheistic scientists who seek to rid the world of religion, not believers who seek to rid the world of science. It is atheistic scientists who wish to deny believers a seat at the table of policy-making, not believers who seek to deny seats to atheistic scientists.
In short, this is a case of asymmetric warfare.
December 15th, 2006 at 9:41 am
“But what difference does it make if you trace your morals and values to a non-existent supernatural authority, or if you trace them to biochemically and culturally determined cognitive processes?”
The difference is that a religious based moral system is fixed and unchangeable whereas a non-religious moral framework is based on the society we live and and is able to “evolve” and improve with time.
Let’s not forget that the bible tells us that it’s fine and dandy to stone your children to death if they misbehave and that it’s OK to own other people as slaves.
“A world run by like-thinking scientists is as horrific to contemplate as one run by like-thinking evangelicals.”
Who said that the world should be “run” by scientists? The world should be “run” (in a moral sense) by society as a whole.
December 15th, 2006 at 12:46 pm
“It is atheistic scientists who wish to deny believers a seat at the table of policy-making, not believers who seek to deny seats to atheistic scientists.”
The reason why ‘believers’ should not have a seat at the table of policy-making is that there are too many different kinds of believers. It’s not hard to imagine all the seats at this table being filled with believers of all persuasions but it IS hard to imagine them reaching some kind of consensus. The discussions would descend into interminable theological disputes and quibbles. The reason that science should be used as a yardstick is that it is naturalistic -it “has no need” of the God hypothesis, or the karma hypothesis, or the operating thetan hypothesis etc…everyone, believer or atheist, can agree that science works with its naturalistic outlook and makes no unneccesary assumptions.
December 15th, 2006 at 2:37 pm
“The difference is that a religious based moral system is fixed and unchangeable whereas a non-religious moral framework is based on the society we live and and is able to “evolve” and improve with time.”
Or devolve and deteriorate. See for example Stalin’s Soviet Union or Mao Tse Tung’s China. These were avowedly atheistic regimes (Religion is the opium of the people – Karl Marx) that actively persecuted religious believers as well as causing the deaths of tens of millions of their own citizens. Atheists hold no moral high ground over believers.
December 15th, 2006 at 8:55 pm
crusades, inquisition, nazi’s, bosnia v serbia, england v ireland, muslim v other muslim v israel v US, David Koresh & his branch davidians, the KKK, Skinheads…..
Communism is a political dogma similar to religion and is not synonymous with athiesm. Prior to WWII there was a christian socialist movement in the US.
Athiesm strictly means a disbelief in God. It is not a religion. Most of the violence throughout history, with the exception of communism, has been between religious factions. Religion in the US was to blaim for the civil war (the bible defends slavery), continued civil rights suppression, and subjugation of women.
A clear set of social rules can easily be formed. ie do not steal, do not injure or kill any person or animal, do not lie, do not commit adultry, do not discriminate against anyone based on race or sexual orientation.
Ethics and religion are not mutually inclusive, you can have one without the other.
December 16th, 2006 at 6:33 am
These discussions are interesting but remarkably lacking in civility toward religion. Though they deny the existence of demons, several commenters have no problem “demonizing” fellow scientists who happen to hold religious beliefs. Though they deny the legitimacy of religious authority, they excommunicate the heretics among them from the temple of science. In short, they act as defenders of an ancient religion under challenge. Very ironic, I’d say.
“It’s not hard to imagine all the seats at this table being filled with believers of all persuasions but it IS hard to imagine them reaching some kind of consensus. The discussions would descend into interminable theological disputes and quibbles.” Sounds like every scientific committee I’ve served on.
Several commenters have defended their opposition to the moral claims of Judeo-Christian religion by making various empirical fact statemetns — e.g., “the Bible defends slavery”; “it’s fine and dandy to stone your children to death if they misbehave”; “religion in the US was to blaim [sic] for the civil war…, continued civil rights suppression, and subjugation of women”. Responsible scientists, of course, would never make fact-claims that they cannot back up with empirical evidence from primary sources. To them I say: provide this evidence or withdraw the claims.
December 16th, 2006 at 2:34 pm
I believe today that I am acting in the sense of the Almighty Creator. By warding off the Jews I am fighting for the Lord’s work. [Adolph Hitler, Speech, Reichstag, 1936]
“And as for your male and female slaves whom you may have from the nations that are around you, from them you may buy male and female slaves. Moreover you may buy the children of the strangers who dwell among you, and their families who are with you, which they beget in your land; and they shall become your property. And you may take them as an inheritance for your children after you, to inherit them as a possession; they shall be your permanent slaves. But regarding your brethren, the children of Israel, you shall not rule over one another with rigor.” (Leviticus 25:44-46)
the bible aprroving of slavery
“Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression.”–1 Tim. 2:11-14
the bible approving the subjugation of women
“Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination.” Leviticus 18:22
the bibles views on homosexuality
There are many resources on religion and how it has damaged society, as well as, helped society.
The Bible, the Q’uran, Freethinkers: a History of American Secularism, The God Delusion, A Letter to a Christian Nation, Mein Kampf, Online sources such as wikipedia. There are countless sources about religion, you just have to look. Or you could just watch the news (Conservative Christians trying to overturn Roe v. Wade)
December 16th, 2006 at 5:26 pm
“The difference is that a religious based moral system is fixed and unchangeable…”
“Let’s not forget that the bible tells us that it’s fine and dandy to stone your children to death if they misbehave and that it’s OK to own other people as slaves.”
Ummmm…let’s not forget that many of the leading Abolitionists of the 19th century based their opposition to slavery very firmly on their Christianity, e.g.:
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/aaohtml/exhibit/aopart3.html
“Benezet also used the biblical maxim, ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,’ to justify ending slavery.”
How many Christians today support the owning of slaves? Not many, right? Doesn’t that mean that “a religious based moral system” is NOT “fixed and unchangeable”?
December 17th, 2006 at 4:38 pm
Dustin,
Whether it was written in Moses’ day (c. 1400 BCE) or a thousand years later, slavery was everywhere practiced at the time Leviticus was written. Like numerous other provisions in Torah, Lev. 25 sets forth rules concerning whom the Israelites could own as slaves, and if they owned any, how they were to be treated. Given the contemporaneous ubiquity of various forms of political and economic bondage, it is unremarkable that a collection of laws would include matters related to slaves. If there had been any secular society in the day, it also would have had to write such laws. What is remarkable about Lev. 25 is that it explicitly forbade the Israelites from making slaves of each other under any circumstances. That may be unique, not just for the period, but over a broad swath of thousands of years. The rationalist Greeks certainly had no qualms with enslaving other Greeks.
Contemporary attention to slavery seems focused on the African slave trade. Who was responsible for ending it? William Wilberforce. What motivated him to do it? His conversion to Christianity in 1785.
You assert that religion in the US was to blame for the Civil War, and that is certainly true – just not for the reason you imply, and I doubt you would say you prefer the peaceful alternative. The War occurred because the Abolitionists refused to accept perpetual slavery in the South. The War could have been avoided if Lincoln had permitted southern secession. He didn’t. The Abolitionist movement was founded by evangelical Christians, most notably Lyman Beecher (whose daughter wrote “Uncle Tom’s Cabin”). Abolitionist evangelical Christian colleges were established, not that you would recognize (say) Oberlin as evangelical today. The anthem of the Civil Rights movement – “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” – is an anti-slavery ballad of deeply evangelical character. Had atheists or pragmatic scientists been in charge, the war would have been avoided and the union destroyed.
You write that the Bible approves of the subjugation of women, but to reach that conclusion you ought, like in the case of slavery, disentangle matters of doctrine from matters of contemporaneous culture and practice. For example, the passage you cite from 1 Timothy refers to worship practices of the 1st century CE. There surely are Christian sects that seek to mimic these practices, but they comprise a vanishingly small fraction of the Church. And they violate these practices as soon as they flip on the electric lights. A better place to look for a sustained commitment to (relatively) ancient rules, including the segregation and apparent inferiority of women, is in Orthodox Judaism rather than evangelical Protestantism. Yet atheistic scientists rarely object to Orthodox Jews, and routinely make significant concessions on their behalf. Does any university still hold classes on Rosh Hashanah or Yom Kippur?
The orthodox Christian (both Catholic and evangelical) position is that women and men are equal in the sight of God. As are slaves and freemen. As are Jews and gentiles. As Paul wrote in his letter to Galatians (3:28), “There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” That is no defense of slavery, but rather a ratification of the inherent worth of each person and but a short step to the reasoned theological inference that slavery is an evil to be vanquished.
As an aside, I should note that Lev. 18 also prohibits child sacrifice and infanticide. This was a rather progressive notion for the time. Nearby nations did this rather routinely in pagan rituals (see Deut. 12:31. 2 Kings 17:31, Jerem. 19:5), but economic infanticide appears to have been commonplace throughout history both before and after Leviticus was written.
Leviticus 18 does condemn homosexual practice, as does 1 Cor. 6:8-10. There is no getting around it. But nowhere does the Bible condemn homosexuality as a biological orientation. Indeed, the bible forbids a long list of sexual practices including many that are clearly heterosexual, such as incest. See Lev. 18 and Deut. 27. John the Baptist was arrested (and ultimately beheaded) for publicly criticizing Herod’s incest.
The biblical moral code is fixed; you can take it or leave it, but for Christians and Jews it comes part and parcel with faith. It isn’t something that some big-haired TV preacher just came up with to sell time shares in Eternity Estates. This has been the accepted moral code in the West for millennia. Only in the past 20 or so years has there been any serious effort to contest it. You are free to adopt the view that these last 20 years are the norm and the previous few thousand are an aberration, but that’s clearly an ahistorical perspective. (Ironically, it is exactly opposite the prevailing scientific view about climate change.)
Regarding all appeals to external authority, whether ancient text or recent scientific work, a text without a context is a pretext. Your suggestion, for example, that there is a seamless web connecting millennia of Judeo-Christian morals to Adolph Hitler is too comically ludicrous to take seriously, and quite frankly, the comparison makes you appear either silly or venal.
What’s not ludicrous but dangerous is the suggestion that the world’s ills can be laid at the feet of religion but not science. A significant cadre of Western liberals believes that the effort to learn how to split the atom was a fundamentally evil act. It was the product of science; no religion of any kind was involved, except perhaps the religion of scientific inquiry for its own sake.
The BBC reported this week that infanticide may be going on in Ukraine to supply the market with stem cells:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6171083.stm“>http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6171083.stm“>http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6171083.stm“>http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6171083.stm“>http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6171083.stm
The BBC has video to back up the charge, but apparently resisted the temptation to broadcast it. Now, the BBC is not Fox News Channel and the Council of Europe (the Beeb’s source) is not some Christian propaganda outfit. COE is engaged in, among other things, combating racism, preventing torture, and (once again) abolishing slavery! (Interestingly, like George W. Bush it is generally opposed to the use of embryonic stem cells.)
But atheistic scientists have been promoting non-adult stem cells as the Holy Grail (so to speak) of biomedical therapy for the 21st Century. By promising cures for every imaginable degenerative disease, they have rather predictably stoked both market demand for stem-cell based cures and now the supply of stem cells. But if this a morally acceptable market, why is the Ukraine story news? Why not legalize the market so that poor mothers can sell their developing babies to the highest bidder? Because most of us recoil at the moral depravity of the notion that embryos, fetuses or infants are property. It is the religious among us who recoil the most. Indeed, we foresaw the market that Ukraine now serves.
Atheistic scientists seek to exclude believers from this public policy debate because they prefer to keep ethics out of the debate. This makes sense because atheism renders them ill-equipped for moral reasoning. Discovery is the thing. Mary Shelley could have written a book about it. Apropos this blog, subtitle it “The Post-Modern Prometheus.”