Tuesday, September 01, 2009

Don’t take it personally

Richard Dawkins is a controversial figure; in the domain of Biology he is a very influential and revered academic, having first popularised the notion that genes are the key unit of selection rather than bodies he went on to introduce the concept of the meme as the unit of human cultural evolution. Much like "on the origin of species" a hundred years before, his book "the selfish gene" (1976) was a landmark in how we now think about evolution and selection in particular. Recently Dawkins has turned his attention to Atheism and religion, his recent book "The God Delusion" was a best seller and helped to put in motion a general shift in the zeitgeist over the last year or two, perhaps even altering the apparent trend at the time for increasing religious fundamentalism.

Whenever the subject of Dawkins comes up in conversation with religious people the reaction is fairly uniform, he is regarded as disrespectful, strident and perhaps even downright rude; this underlying impression understandably means that quite a lot of people don't actually read his work because they think he is simply going to insult them. I am a big fan of Dawkins, but that doesn't mean I agree with everything he writes or says either, however, there is clearly a point of fracture here which I believe is worthy of examination.

Dawkins is a scientist, he often uses language which is academic in definition, for example words like "theory" have a different meaning in science than they do in general use, even his book titles, for example the "selfish" gene misleads a lot of people into thinking that he is proposing that genes have intelligence and purpose, the opposite is true. So when he uses a word like "Delusion" I believe he is simply using the word in the academic sense, i.e. "belief in something for which there is no supporting evidence", he is not saying stupid. Clearly then, there are a range of possibilities in terms of what would qualify as delusion when using this strict definition, I can think of at least four scenarios, only one of which would actually qualify.

  1. The believer was raised culturally to believe in God but have never really put much thought into it; when asked such a person might say "I'm a Catholic" or "I'm a Jew" but this is more of a cultural label than a fixed set of beliefs. This state probably represents the majority of moderate religious people, and according to our definition is not delusional.
  2. The believer has no scientific education and is simply unaware of the strength of evidence for things like evolution or the big bang theory etc.; again, this is not a delusional position. Often atheists use another controversial word to describe this position, for example, that it is based on "ignorance", again this does not mean "stupid"; it simply means "you don't know".
  3. The believer has looked at scientific evidence but does not understand how it refutes their belief, this lack of depth or ignorance is simply wrong, not delusional. Again there is a vocabulary issue here, the word "wrong" simply means that evidence exists which falsifies the belief, for example radiometric dating falsifies the belief that the world is 6,000 years old, it does not mean bad or stupid etc.
  4. The believer has looked and understood the evidence after having put some thought into it, however has disregarded that evidence and still insists on sticking to the letter of things like the Genesis creation myth etc. Sorry, but this is delusional.

Using precise terms with specific meaning is essential within technical disciplines, ambiguity is our enemy; however outside of scientific discourse ambiguity can be an ally, it serves as a way of drawing people with opposing views into the conversation, causing questions to be asked and explanations invited. It is really hard for scientists to break out of this mode of speaking, I do it myself all the time, using words like delusion and ignorant. The opposite is also true of course when religious people use allegory and deliberately imprecise language to describe concepts, this kind of thing is guaranteed to wind us rational types up.

Is there a halfway house in this debate? Probably, I'm not sure what though; perhaps more concise examples, better analogies or even more humour; whatever it is an open mind is required.

20 comments:

Elizabeth said...

Loved this post. You should publish a book of essays. your writing is always so well thought out and carefully constructed.

Steve Borthwick said...

E, thanks you are too kind; you know I did once have this idea for a book about a school for wizards... :)

David Keen said...

Good post. I wonder whether Dawkins is happy to be understood both 'scientifically' and 'unscientifically', and is ok about the ambiguity. But I should read his stuff more closely.

Part of the problem with faith language is that it's sometimes closer to poetry than to science. If you're using imagery to define things that are beyond words, then it's bound to be ambiguous. Whether those things are 'beyond words' because they don't actually exist is another question!!

I think Jesus deliberately put a lot of his teaching in story form because it was ambiguous, you had to go away and think about it, and the point wasn't always clear-cut and easy to work out. It's 'deliberately imprecise' because that's how stories work. Like Harry Potter!

Steve Borthwick said...

Hi David,

Thanks for your comment, you know I think Dawkins is OK with it; I've heard him say that he is deliberate in his approach even though he knows full well it will upset some people. He says he cares more about the truth than feelings ("truth" in a scientific sense rather than a theological sense)

I think there is no doubt that Jesus communicated some interesting and useful philosophy as did other prophets of his ilk; the fact that it is horribly ambiguous and requires "interpretation" would be evidence for me that the works are man made rather than divine in inspiration.

If there were a God then I bet she would choose Mathematics as the language with which to communicate; words and their inherent ambiguity just cause way too much trouble! :)

Alex said...

Steve,
You write "The believer has looked at scientific evidence but does not understand how it refutes their belief". Maybe this is not wrong at all. Not all "believers" believe, for example, that Genesis is meant to be a literal or scientific account of the beginning of the universe. I am, I hope, an intelligent thoughtful person. I have no problem with the big bang or evolution. I worship God and believe in the incarnation and the resurrection. It's not that I don't "understand" how science refutes my belief, it's that I just don't think there's any necessary conflict. Just like most of the Christians I know, in fact. We're not, in general fundamentalists or literalists.

David Keen said...

Nice ideas: I've heard maths described as beautiful by people who are really into it. Almost sounds religious... But the medium affects the message: what limits would maths put on what 'God' could communicate through it?

As humans we choose words over numbers because words are personal and express meaning in a way which numbers can't. Otherwise this blog would be in binary.....?

Steve Borthwick said...

Alex,

Many thanks for your comment, you make a good point, if someone believes in God but doesn't take the various scriptures "literally", then I think that is a great illustration of how what we are talking about is a continuum rather than a binary this or that etc.

I think people sometimes struggle with that concept; I often find that people love to put me in a "box" in terms of "oh you're an atheist therefore you must believe x, y and z" reality is nothing like that of course.

Steve Borthwick said...

Hi David,

Yes I've heard people say that too; using numbers would be impossible I agree, however there is a branch of maths however that deals with "formal specification" which you can use to describe real-world concepts and entities. It's something we use sometimes in my industry (computer science) because it's not ambiguous like natural language; it would be rather tedious to have a conversation using it though!

Probably best we stick to English :)

Steven Carr said...

'Not all "believers" believe, for example, that Genesis is meant to be a literal or scientific account of the beginning of the universe.'

Correct.

Genesis is not meant to be factual.

Steven Carr said...

In fact, Genesis is no more literally true than alleged eyewitness stories of the resurrected Jesus ascending into the sky, and disappearing into a cloud on his way to Heaven.

Steve Borthwick said...

Hi Steven,

Many thanks for your comment, it's an interesting point, this kind of assertion about what is true and what isn't is one of the things at the root of the problem for me; I ask myself how does the believer "know" which parts to believe and which parts to treat as allegory and why does that often look like self interest.

Without the benchmark of something like evidence this seems like a very big problem for scripture based religions because it is inevitably divisive and confirmation for the non-believer that the scripture itself is simply man made.

Would it really matter to Christians if the Bible was actually shown (in a scientific sense) to be a work of fiction, is it necessary to have a book or is the "idea" enough?

Gerrarrdus said...

Steve, science is at times just as nebulous as religious language. Quite often our assumptions about science assume that it has actually progressed no further than the Darwin/Newtonian level of the 19th century. Quantum theory has a vagueness and uncertainty that as a Christian I find familiar - particularly in the light of the doctrine of the Trinity. And I was a scientist (or at least a degree-level science student) for quite some time before I became a Christian - I was captured by Quantum theory and then by Incarnation and Trinity.
Science uses models all the time. They're not strictly "true" but they illustrate truth. Examples would be the "atoms as bouncy billiard balls" model, the "electron as a particle" model, the equally true "electron as a wave" one. To take any one of them as "the truth" would be foolish, but they're models of the truth and they help our understanding of science. Trinity, ascension, resurrection are all similar in my mind - to regard them as a simplistic physical "truth" is to take them out of context. But to take them for what they are is to model the world of faith in the same way science models the physical world - being a simpler, more comprehensible view of the depth and truth of what is beyond our ability to explain.

Steve Borthwick said...

G,

Many thanks for commenting, I agree some aspects of science are outside of our normal experience and we don't have convenient "everyday" language or rules of thumb to describe them; I too find some physics concepts counter-intuitive, but this isn't the same as being nebulous.

Your argument hinges on the assumption that because we don't have the (everyday) language to describe electrons and we don't have the language to describe the trinity that somehow these two things are equally "true", this is a logical fallacy of course and a mashing together of two different uses of the word "truth".

You never see two countries going to war over who has the better theory of electrons, this simple thought experiment breaks your argument. i.e. the notion is absurd because any scientific theory can be falsified by experiment or observation, the Trinity cannot.

I agree with your last comment though, faith is certainly a mental model, but of an imaginary world, a world of ideas and feelings. Unfortunately a lot of "faithful" people aren't content to keep it in their minds, and wish to impose their "thoughts" onto the real world of people who don't share those same thoughts; and as we all know, that's when the trouble begins.

Lisa said...

I agree Steve. One of the large difficulties with maintaining a position that the bible is the communication of some god is that a lot of it is inconsistent with other parts of it or inconsistent with other ideas that theists claim to hold. And these difficulties are usually addressed by claiming that the problematic parts are allegorical or metaphorical and therefore are unintended to be taken literally, when in the end no one seems able to articulate a principled way to tell the difference, apart from (as you said) preference.

And I'll admit to being puzzled as to why jesus would deliberate try to convey information ambiguously. Maybe that means that jesus finds that thinking for one's self is a primary value; more important perhaps than ends. Presumably, that means that people can come to different conclusions, and then maybe jesus' writings supports all of them, since the writings are not clear. I wouldn't have thought that christians in fact accept many different understandings of christianity, including those inconsistent with their own. Most of the christians I have come into contact with claim that particular understandings are correct or incorrect and there isn't really any allowance for multiple "truths".

And of course, Steve, hitting the nail on the head again wrt falsifiability. We can invent many ideas that are not falsifiable, and in fact there is no reason to think that it is impossible that unfalsifiable things cannot be true. But that puts religions on par with the flying spaghetti monster.

Steve Borthwick said...

Hi Lisa,

Thanks for your comment, I agree practice does not seem to tally with theory when it comes to how theology is pitched to people; having sat through church sermons every single day in my youth I heard the various stories Adam & Eve, Noah, Jonah, Abraham, Moses etc. presented as fact, or at least in the manner of facts; never once did any vicar clarify at the end of a sermon that the particular story was really only allegorical.

I'd forgotten about the "FSM"/ Russell's teapot analogy, thanks for reminding me!

Lisa said...

Steve,

I know I am just elaborating on your point about falsifiabilty, but I am not understanding the point someone made above about religious models and scientific models being the same thing.

Scientific models have predictive value - they are not just about teaching complicated topics to children. Is there a faith simulator in existence where you can run an experiment and we can see some of your data?

Steve Borthwick said...

Lisa, I think its a logical fallacy kind of thing,

The science of electrons (or quantum theory) is hard to understand and the religious explanation of the Trinity is hard to understand therefore science and religion are similar (equal?) in their explanatory powers.

Or in other words, A->B and C->B therefore A=C, some kind of propositional fallacy.

Hopefully G can add some colour?

Gerrarrdus said...

Love to...

[SNIP]Your argument hinges on the assumption that because we don't have the (everyday) language to describe electrons and we don't have the language to describe the trinity that somehow these two things are equally "true", this is a logical fallacy of course and a mashing together of two different uses of the word "truth".[/SNIP]

- no, that wasn't what I was arguing. Otherwise the world of Moomintroll would be true as well. They could both be equally false. Most scientific theories, after all, are subsequently proven to be false - it's the nature of science, and its beauty. And if there is a spiritual truth behind the universe, then most religious language must also be false, for the simple reason that there are so many differing religions.
My point was simply that picture language is used in both.

I was saying that both are actually using models. We use models of reality in science all the time - hard atoms, mathematical models, climate models; Schrodinger's Cat. In Economics we use models of how the economy works. In IT we use Entity Relationship Diagrams to model "reality" as it exists within business or society. None of these models is the truth - they are different ways of talking about different aspects of truth.

Faith uses similar models - when the early Church wrote about the Ascension that was the language and the thought-forms they had. Did Jesus disappear up into the sky in a big cloud? Probably not as we would see it - but there's a faith message behind all this, using the thought-forms and language that were available to the people who experienced and described the Ascension at the time.

On the subject of predictability - why would I want to test the doctrine of the Trinity, for example? Faith isn't science, and maybe this is the problem that so many non-scientists and non-Christrians have. Science works on the basis of hypothesis, testing and revision of the hypothesis. Faith doesn't. It works on revelation, myth and experience. In the process it makes a sense of the world. In my view it's no more right nor wrong than science - it's a different kind of sense - in the same way that an economic description of the impact of Global Warming is different to running a climate model. It's a category error to try to bring the two against each other.
On the subject of category errors - conflicting sections of the Bible. Of course they conflict. The different books of the Bible are written by different people, at different periods of time, into different circumstances. There is case law, poetry, novel, myth, biography, and history. And, as all accept with history, history is never the disinterested "science" that some used to think. It's relative. Expecting the whole Bible to be coherent in the way that creationists and anti-Christian scientists seem to, would be like expecting the works of Albert Einstein, "Pride and Prejudice", the script of Fry & Laurie and the American Declarion of Independence to form a coherent whole. They won't - but between them they'll tell you all sorts of things about what we are like now.

Lisa said...

On the subject of predictability, why would you want to test religious doctrines? Because it supports your claim that models in science work like models in religion. My claim is that they don't.

I am not conflicted concerning the proposition that religion is not like science. I wonder why you are on the one hand desiring to make them so similar, as in your likening religious models to scientific models, likening science to nebulous religious language, likening incoherence in law to incoherence in the bible (p.s. no one claims that law is the word of gods), and simultaneously desiring to make them so different.

If religious models are some representation of reality for people, like science models, then why aren't they tested in order to try to ensure their validity, as with scientific models? Why aren't they modified as testing is done to represent the best truth about gods as knowledge deepens? Because they are not actually like scientific models, except in a very limited sense, such as trying to teach complicated concepts to children and others who have difficulty understanding them. That doesn't really make religious tales like scientific models on my view.

Steve Borthwick said...

G, sorry I misunderstood your point, I thought you were equating the two things. You are right both science and religion use analogy to explain things, as per your electron example. But as far as I am aware religion does not use "models" in the sense that they have a predictive capability like scientific models do (for example the model of our weather systems)

Interested to hear you are in IT, so am I we use ERM's and DFD's all the time too; these models do have predictive power but as you say are not necessarily complete, the other key difference is that things like ERM's can to some extent be validated, for example you can eliminate fan traps and chasm traps and build prototypes to test them, religious "models" cannot be tested and where they have been they invariably fail, for example testing the efficacy of prayer.

I agree that faith isn't science, a lot of literal evangelicals would like their followers to think it is though, for example in the area of "creation science" (an oxymoron if ever there was one!); it is interesting that some religious people would like to blur the distinction between the two things, almost like they want to benefit from the rigour and reliability of science but not have to be bothered to put the work in.

It's refreshing to hear a religious person take a pragmatic view of their "holy texts", I think this is much more realistic that most tend to do, for me the fact that they are contradictory and written over hundreds of years and edited over and over again is evidence that they are man made rather than divine in origin; for example there is nothing in the Bible that could not have been written by the people at the time, nor are there any particularly unique gems of insight that can't be also found in other cultures etc. An early attempt at philosophy certainly, culturally and historically important yes, but divine? no evidence for that so far.