Buck Daruma, My ass

You know I think we have a fundamental disagreement on one point which may really be the crux of the argument.

I don't - in the least - think Dawkins was (to use your term) 'being an asshole'; I don't think he was attacking anyone except for those who try to use science as a way to somehow justify or validate faith. The whole book was clearly conceived as an attack on exactly those people and exactly those ideas; a point I didn't make in that other blog, but clearly the reason he wrote the book.

He does not (much) attack religion itself; he attacks those who place it next to science. It may have value, or it may not, but it's in no way equivalent to science, and it in no way supersedes science.

Sure, he takes apart the concept of faith pretty thoroughly. But he's not saying you people who disagree with me are bad and stupid, he's saying, don't fucking pretend it's something other than blind faith or that you can dress it up as science.

Those who choose to foist misinformation or lies, those who preach ignorance as a virtue, those who claim a higher authority based on a mythical being and a system of faith are, in my opinion, guilty of a moral crime. I won't say they should be punished, but I will say they must be exposed.

And I think even if you didn't enjoy the book, he did well by even initiating dialogs like this. It's the kind of dialog that needs to happen more, rather then everyone sitting around and saying we can't question it, because it's your religion.

Default Atheism

I'm guilty of a minor hypocrisy, and I should 'fess up and stop before I get dragged further in; This is turning into a polemic against Dawkins and the "cult of science", which is what I've accused him of doing with religion and it's unfair. I'm also exaggerating when I say that I hated the book; it did dissapoint me, because it's possible to do a much better job with the same material.

I definitely and unreservedly grant your point that religion is not a science, that trying to tart up religion as a science is charlatanism, and that He rightfully exposes it as such. That's fine.

But the default position for Atheism is not belief in science, and this is where we do disagree I suspect and where things get interesting. Default Atheism doesn't believe that science holds all the answers. Default Atheism is comfortable with the fact that sometimes there are no answers, that the universe doesn't owe you anything.

Default Atheism sees science as a cult and only marginally superior to other faiths at best. Science places an arrogant faith in the intelligence and insight of human beings; it says that this time, when we look at light and we say "waveicle", this time we're right. It's not like last time when we said "light must be travelling through the ether, and so must we". It's not like last time when we said "burning is when we move the phlogiston around". No, baby, this time it'll be better, I promise.

More than that, it's arrogant to assume we can find an answer at all, and that's another way in which science becomes like a cult. And no one's allowed to question the scientific method because it's evidence-based. I'm a scientist, admittedly a poor one, but I'm better trained than the average mook who picks up Stephen Hawking's coffee table books and never makes it past the first chapter (but still insists that Science can answer everything).

Science, let me tell you, does not know everything. Also that the evidence in this "evidence based method" everyone keeps touting, that evidence is often shaky, often sifted for the bits that most agree with whatever theory we want to cook up this month, and often leads to some pretty dodgy places (see phlogiston, leeches, trepanning, the ether, dark energy, etc.)

By Default, Atheism looks at Science's record and says "meh". The Leeches weren't such a good idea. When you smile and nod and go "yes, there must be waveicles, quantum mechanics says so" you've fallen prey to the cult of science. The same is true for any of the existing schools of evolution, even granted that one of them may be true. Again, true atheism - what I call Default Atheism - does not fall for this line. True Atheism says "you don't know that, not for sure".

for myself, I believe that scientific enquiry is better than sitting around on your ass. But I'm not blind; I know that what I believe is an article of faith. I have faith in humans. I'm not a default atheist.

Given this background, I agree totally with your last two paragraphs. Those who claim higher authority because of any system of faith are guilty of a moral crime and should be exposed. The Pope is an easy target. Gould, Penrose and Hawking are harder targets but no less valid ones.

And I definitely agree that he did a great service by initiating the discussion at all, and that we desperately need this kind of dialogue. I'd support his book no matter what he said for this reason alone, actually; We can't question it is probably my least favourite phrase in the universe.

See? We agree on more stuff than we disagree on after all.

We agree on more stuff than we disagree on after all

Duh.

You know, I think this is one of the key points that makes the dialog/debate difficult. I presume (often incorrectly) that this is implicit in all scientific dialog:

you don't know that, not for sure

As in a debate on art one must mentally insert in my opinion in every statement (because writing or saying it quickly becomes unwieldy), one must presume that any statement of 'scientific fact' isn't fact as in proven beyond the doubt of any intelligence, beyond question. Fact, once must assume, means in this context 'supported by evidence to the best of our current ability to measure said evidence.'

I tend to assume we all know this. I assume we don't need to keep saying it.

Sure, we could all be in pods dreaming this while the computers supply a virtual world and suck out our physical energy to power them through some nuclear winter; sure, there could be a whole level of reality we can't see; and yes, there are things going on we cannot now, and may never, be able to measure or grasp.

But at some point, we have to say, 'well, we think that's a bottom line, let's build on it," just as one must sometimes say 'oh, yeah, we were totally wrong, start over.' Otherwise, we slide ultimately into nothing matters, so why bother.

The point isn't that science knows all. That's almost as silly as believing in a literal gray-bearded father-figure in the sky who listens to us pray. The point is that science, when done correctly (and you know this) gives us a system by which to ask the difficult questions and then test the quality of the answers.

None of this is news clearly; you're more a scientist than I am. I'm just a fuckin' programmer. But my point is that I presume this (for good or ill) in the dialog and often forget to explicitly state it. I think that may be the cause of some of the knocks writers like Dawkins take; he's too smart not to know that at some point in his logical structure he's got a leap of faith. But that seems too fundamentally obvious to state. It's left as a presumed subtext, a footnote every time one says fact or proof or we know, that underlying is to the best of our ability.

Perhaps we need to not assume that; perhaps we need to keep saying it. But I'd rather read a book where the writer assumes a certain minimal level of understanding than have to read something that looks like a legal document, The Party of the First Part...

I'm going back to style. While I've got quibbles with this and that in Dawkin's book, as I always had with Sagan or with Burke or whomever, and as I assume I will when I get around to reading Hawking or Hofstadter or any other scientist who crosses over into writing books for the popular culture, the bottom line is that I enjoyed God Delusion, partly because I simply thing Dawkins is a good writer and a clever man, and partly because it made sit down and think about my own personal belief systems. It made me think about Darwinian evolution as a system (and made me want to study it further, in greater depth than my cursory understanding of it). The book made me think, which is one of my foremost measures of an important book to me, personally. It made me turn things around and look at them from different angles.

I think on that level - it makes one think - it's a success for any of us. I think it's a stylistic element where it fails for you, and i think it's an interesting question (obviously a hypothetical one) to wonder if you'd have found the book so annoying in tone and style if you did not have a hard-science background. I can well imagine, had I studied hard science in more depth in school, that I'd find far more to quibble over; but again, I don't know if that would change my final opinion or not.

I have a feeling this argument may regress into De gustibus non est disputandum, but that's ok, that phrase never stops me from disputing matters of taste. B^)

I think I need to go and read the book. Not sure how much of the debate is centered around Dawkins vs. Religion and Science. Sorry guess I'm reading and not participating. *Pulling out my hair and meandering off this time.*

Karl: I think you've hit the kernel of it, here. And here's a funny thing; the difference between us is your implicit trust that scientists think the same way you do - that they insert your invisible you can't know that - and I'm way more cynical. Especially when it comes to Oxford scientists, who are known traditionally for their elitism. I think this might mean that you are a nicer person than I am.

I really don't think that phrase is always implicit, And I think it's one of the differences between science cultists and, say, "reformists". Another telling point, by the way, is how much faith you place in the ability of science to solve a problem or explain a phenomenon.

I don't think you can't know that for sure needs to be placed in every conversation, but I think that people need to be on their guard and ready to insert it sometimes. It's far too easy to be lulled into a false sense of security by scientific claims, which is lazy and cowardly thinking. You have to be ready to call bullshit, even though you maybe don't even do it very often.

And this does bring us, finally, to your last question. And yeah, you're right; with less training I'd find it much harder to quibble. I suspect my radar would go off and I'd feel slightly uneasy though, I'd just be less able to articulate it. No matter how good a book is, it has to be subject to the same rules it preaches or it becomes hypocritical. All that book needed to go from annoying to good was for him to expend a little fucking effort and tighten his arguments. That's all.

DBD: no need to go pulling your hair out. It's only a debate. And I think it's pretty much run its' course now anyway. unless someone else stumbles by and adds something new.

I'm only skimming through the back and forth because the whole core at which this discussion turns on (more or less "is god a valid concept") seems so irrelevant. I always want to answer the question, "Does God exist?" with something like, "Vanilla."

But i wanted to say, which I didn't where and when the discussion started, that I am very grateful to you, Buck, for saying what you did on Hiromi's blog. I have said similar things, but of course no one will listen to me because I WILL not call myself an atheist and I CAN not claim to be a scientist, so both camps (and those who support them) tend to simply dismiss me out of hand. It was nice to hear someone who is actually both be able to admit for once that not everything is explainable and that "science" is a concept and not a consistently reliable truth in which to put one's...ahem...undying faith.

Honestly, the whole discussion annoys me. It annoys me when religious people try to convince others they need to believe in god. But it annoys me even more that so many atheists, who supposedly think the behavior of the religious is so foolhardy, try just as strongly to force others into believing there isn't a god--or behave with disdain and make statements that imply others are "fools" because they don't believe what they do. BELIEVE being the key word. If religions are indeed the root of most of the world's atrocities, and I'm not arguing that statement, one would think those who don't believe in religion would make a concerted effort not to behave just like those who have caused such negativity based on the need to proselytize for their beliefs.

I won't get into the constantly faulty equations the devoutly religious draw up for themselves to claim superiority of attitude, because we who are having this discussion here all know what they are.

But I will point out that the equations atheists consistently make are just as erroneous. Such as god=religion, science=truth, science=atheism, truth=atheism, scientist≠person of faith, existence of god≠veracity of science. None of these assertions are in any way consistently true or provable, and I'm sick of people insisting they're fact. JUST as I'm sick of the contentions of the uber religious on the other side.

Default Atheism doesn't believe that science holds all the answers. Default Atheism is comfortable with the fact that sometimes there are no answers, that the universe doesn't owe you anything. Default Atheism sees science as a cult and only marginally superior to other faiths at best.

If this is true, then you can call me a default atheist, I guess. It pretty much embodies what I believe. But...

The more science and math I am exposed to, the greater my conviction that not only can it never explain everything, it can't even explain very much.

Your quote from Hiromi's original post. This is the closest thing to truth that I have ever found, and that I think any of us will ever find. Or, to condense it to Socrates, "I know nothing except the fact of my ignorance."

So who the fuck cares what we call ourselves?

"I don't believe in god, I believe in science?" (And you KNOW they want to capitalize the S just as much as the religious want to capitalize the G")

Well, screw that. BELIEVE IN is the problem here. It's the same, it's a cult of belief, and there's no point.

To bastardize someone else's quote, "I just belive in me. Buck(o) and me."

And I'm beginning to have my doubts about Buck(o). ;-p

The only thing I know to be true besides myself is the infinite existence of the space where we don't ever know what is true.

You all want to fight out what that's called?

Vanilla.

I should have added one other faulty equation above. Belief in god = belief in religion.