But Dawkins, Dennett, & Co. are not in a very good position to complain given their constant use of cheapshots and cartoonish mischaracterizations (the flying spaghetti monster, etc.) in their polemics against theists. What we have here is an
ideological struggle, not between science and religion, but between opposing
philosophical positions,
scientism and naturalist metaphysics on the one side, theism on the other. Since it is an ideological struggle it is at least arguable that it is justifiable to answer cheapshots with cheapshots, polemics with polemics. It is a matter of self-defense. One has to elicit support from 'the folks' and they cannot be expected to muster the attention or have the background required to follow the subtle arguments of sweet reason. When I saw the film, the audience clapped vigorously at the end, which showed that Stein reached that particular audience with his message. Did he persuade them
rationally? Maybe not. But he persuaded them, which is all that counts politically. Do militant atheists persuade people
rationally with their cheapshots? No, but they persuade them.
Each side has doxastic commitments that go beyond what can be strictly proven or even supported by empirical evidence. It is crucial to appreciate that the debate is not beween science (natural science) and theism but between a scientistic metaphysics and theism.
But suppose you disagree with what I just said. Suppose you insist that it really is science versus religion: that science alone gives us truth about reality, religion nothing but comforting illusions. (Strictly speaking, 'religion' and 'theism' are not coextensive terms, as witness Pali Buddhism; but their conflation is innocuous for present purposes.) Then you are in effect subscribing to something like the following Incompatibility Thesis:
IT: Science are religion are incompatible: only one of them is 'cognitive' or revelatory of reality.
But surely (IT) or your favorite reformulation thereof is not a proposition of natural science. It is a philosophical proposition accepted by some, and rejected by others, with competent scientists on both sides. The same goes for the negation of (IT), according to which science and religion are compatible. It would be folly to think that either (IT) or its negation could be established by empirical methods. This issue, then, is a philosophical issue.
Let us return to the Ruse segment. Stein presses his question about how life arises out of non-life. Ruse becomes impatient snd somewhat churlish. "I just told you,' he repeats two or three times. But of course Ruse's answer is no answer at all. It does nothing to render intelligible the transition from nonliving matter to the first cells. It is at most a gesture in the direction of a possible avenue of research which one hopes will lead to an intelligible naturalist explanation. In effect, Ruse is just insisting dogmatically that life arises from the inorganic. It just can't be any other way. It happens SOMEHOW whether or not we can explain the 'how.' Intelligible or not, it happens as a matter of brute fact. It cannot be any other way since it would violate the rules of the natural-scientific game to admit any explanation that invoked a factor that was not itself ingredient in the material world. There is just one world, the material world, and everything in it has to be explained in terms of other things in it, simpler things and temporally antecedent things, with no recourse to anything 'supernatural.'
Now there is nothing wrong with scientific methodology. Indeed it is wonderful! May it be pursued as far and as deep as possible! Trouble starts when it hardens into a metaphysical dogma according to which nothing can exist that is not an occupant of space-time. It is this dogma that is in necessary conflict with religion. Not science. Science is open-ended, exploratory, patient, and non-dogmatic.
Related Posts (on one page):
- Cinematic Cheapshots in Expelled, the Ruse Segment, and the Ideological Nature of the Debate
- A Note on a Review of Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed
Even though I'm quite a fan of empirical methods, I'm appalled that anybody would think those methods are adequate to uncover and articulate all the truths of this world. That notion is just plain stupid.
They usually answer this question with some hand waving about how evolutionary theory is necessary for medical research or something similar, but can never answer why positive approaches would not work just as well.
Meanwhile, anti-scientific hacks are causing genuine problems in the world today, from UFO theorists spreading paranoia about the Air Force, to quasi-engineer 9/11 conspiracy theorists spreading paranoia about the federal government, to telephone fortune tellers duping retired people out of their savings, to fake medical practitioners who have actually found their way into hospitals with a medical theory that is indistinguishable from eighteenth-century witchcraft. If you really care about the harmful _effects_ of anti-scientific teachings, you will care more about these things than about any theory of origins. The focus on origins betrays a more subtle agenda.
(My signature will say Doc Rampage now. I used to go by my name, D. Gudeman, but have changed recently.)
The form Lucretius couched his world-picture in, unlike those of his descendants, make it easier to see what he's actually doing: not science, scientia, but cosmogonical mythmaking. It's literature.
C.S. Lewis has a few good essays on the myths which attach themselves to modern "science" like remoras, and their attractiveness as imaginative narratives about the world and our place in it, which makes it so easy to mistake them for science itself.
My biggest problem was his transition to talking about the Darwinist roots of Nazism. After all, what does that have to do with whether Darwinism is true or not? It wasn't until after the movie was over that I realized he was responding to the Dawkins-gang argument that one of the advantages of Darwinism is that it helps get rid of those evil religions. Clearly, that argument is not scientific either, but to the extent that it is persuasive, it has a ready answer in the awful teachings that have arisen out of Darwinism. However, Stein does not make clear why he is bringing up Nazism.
Yes, very entertaining and funny in parts. But also very thought-provoking.
I agree with your astute comment. Stein does not make it clear why he makes the Darwinism-Nazism connection, but yes his intent is the polemical one of offsetting the Dawkins-gang argument.
Dawkins: Darwin good because refutes religion which is bad.
Stein: Darwin bad because leads to Nazism.
Apart from severe qualification, both of these assertions are insupportable. Ain't Culture War fun?
Apart from severe qualification, both of these assertions are insupportable. Ain't Culture War fun?"
It doesn't seem unsupportable to me. I'm guessing that he's saying that the materialist worldview is morally relative, and moral relativism leads to "might makes right." In which case one has no ground to condemn anything like Nazism.
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