Two prominent defenders of science exchange their views on how scientists ought to approach religion and its followers
(Scientific American)
By Lawrence M. Krauss and Richard Dawkins
Editor’s Introduction
Although the authors are both on the side of science, they have not always agreed about the best ways to oppose religiously motivated threats to scientific practice or instruction. Krauss, a leading physicist, frequently steps into the public spotlight to argue in favor of retaining evolutionary theory in school science curricula and keeping pseudoscientific variants of creationism out of them. An open letter he sent to Pope Benedict XVI in 2005, urging the pontiff not to build new walls between science and faith, led the Vatican to reaffirm the Catholic Church’s acceptance of natural selection as a valid scientific theory.
Dawkins, an evolutionary biologist, prolific author and lecturer, is also an eloquent critic of any attempt to undermine scientific reasoning. He has generally shown less interest than Krauss, however, in achieving a peaceful coexistence between science and faith. The title of Dawkins’s best-selling book The God Delusion perhaps best summarizes his opinion of religious belief.
These two allies compared notes from the front lines during breaks at a conference devoted to discussing clashes between science and religion held at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in San Diego late last year. In a dialogue they re-create here, the authors explained their respective tactics for engaging the enemy and tackled some of the questions that face all scientists when deciding whether and how to talk to the faithful about science: Is the goal to teach science or to discredit religion? Can the two worldviews ever enrich one another? Is religion inherently bad? In an extended version of their conversation available here, the authors also delve into whether science can ever test the “God Hypothesis.”
Krauss:
I have, on occasion, debated both creationists and alien abduction zealots. Both groups have similar misconceptions about the nature of explanation: they feel that unless you understand everything, you understand nothing. In debates, they pick some obscure claim, say, that in 1962 some set of people in Outer Mongolia all saw a flying saucer hovering above a church. Then they ask if I am familiar with this particular episode, and if I say no, they invariably say, “If you have not studied every such episode, then you cannot argue that alien abduction is unlikely to be happening.”
Thanks for posting this interesting link. Though Krauss and Dawkins use different approaches to popularize science, I sense from their conversation that they are already well aware of the strengths and limitations of their own strategy.
I find Dawkins’ more confrontation style rather curious, since as an evolutionary biologist he should be aware that most genomes are highly conserved and evolutionary change tends to leverage on the existing gene networks. To put that into a direct analogy, Dawkins should be more concilliatory towards existing social power structures.
However I do understand his point about need for intellectual trustworthiness.
And perhaps ultimately the reach of the message does depend a lot on the charisma of the messenger.
I think Dawkins’ main thrust is not to change the status quo but to move people who already have a predilection towards thinking in those directions. In that light, soft-peddling the message because it is not socially acceptable might not be the best strategy. Instead, he hammers the point with the idea of getting a critical mass of people to come over to his way of thinking.
Yes, you are right. In addition, having a strong, clear message is important to reach the hearts of the undecided. I certainly acknowledge the effectiveness of his relentless “hammering”. 🙂
As for pooling together a critical mass of rational people – many of us have been waiting since the Leuba survey of 1916 for less religious influence in scientific endeavours. The trend is towards less religiosity (Larson 1997), but the drift towards this direction is disappointingly slow, even for practicing scientists. To reach a critical mass may take much longer and more effort than expected.
You have an engaging, creative style of writing. I would like to exchange blog links with you. I write a science blog called Fresh Brainz mainly focused on evolutionary biology, neuroscience and some astronomy.
Happy blogging!
Hammering a massage has its uses, there are however some drawbacks. One of course is that the vast majority of people already have their minds made up.They are unable (or unwilling) to entertain any idea save that of whatever their preconceived notions happen to be. th ease are not as a rule stupid people, some of them are willfully ignorant in that they turn away from any idea which causes conflict with their world view. Some of them believe the best way to propagate their notions is to attack people with differing opinions. (I have a long-time troll in another thread trying to do exactly that.)
At their worst, people like Dawkins can hammer at ideas all day long, they must not hammer at people. Attacking people for their beliefs is not right (although I can’t say I’m perfect on that score, sometimes I allow a person’s words to attack themselves which in my strange way of thinking is OK.)
Heh, thanks for saying so. I wonder sometimes if I’m just fooling myself as I fool around. The response I get is all over the map with this stuff. of course the people who despise me are precisely whom I expect so I suppose I can’t complain (and I am not.)
I’ve seen your blog Fresh Brainz , I’ve already added it.
Thanks for adding my blog! The link doesn’t work though.
In any intellectual debate the ideal, as you’ve highlighted, is to challenge ideas while refraining from personal attacks. Of course the reality is more messy and a lot depends on the sheer patience of both parties. It can be utter frustration sometimes.
As for negative responses, well, just treat them as a sort of training. I believe that people will only react very vigorously if you touched on something they deeply care about, which means your views have hit the mark.
Well the problem remains, many people in the paranormal “biz” take any challenge to their beliefs as a personal attack. Then, some of them respond with real personal slights expecting the challenger to simply melt away. It’s like telling someone that their shoe is untied (for their own good) and getting punched in the belly for it.
People HATE to be told that their pet forgone-conclusions are false. Sometimes there is no subtle way to do it, you just have to wade in and take your lumps as they come.
But there is no rule that says you can’t laugh while you do it!
Hey, sorry about the link, it’s fixed now.