Preach the Controversy!
August 21st, 2006 Jemmy Button Posted in Commentary |
“THERE IS AN INVISIBLE, INTANGIBLE, ODOURLESS ELEPHANT standing in this room, and that is why you are feeling cold: True or False?”
So the Professor wrote on the chalkboard not five minutes into the first session of an “Introduction to the Philosophy of Science” course in an icy lecture hall. It was enough to persuade me I had made a serious error in my selection of a freshman elective course. Maybe I really should have gone for Music Appreciation instead, which now sounded more intellectually engaging.
The ensuing class discussion around this chalkboard proposition was altogether desultory. The statement was manifestly absurd, no one could seriously assert it. Prodded somewhat by the Professor, the point was established that the proposition both asserted a causative agent (the undetectable elephant) and a resulting condition (our feeling cold). But so what? That seemed a rather academic distinction to be made about so ridiculous a claim. We all agreed, the statement was utterly false, and told him so in no uncertain terms.
“Fine,” said the Professor, “but that is the wrong conclusion.” And he then chalked up his next proposition:
“There is an invisible, intangible, odourless, God in this cosmos, and that is why you cannot marry your sister: True or False?”
Well, a full-on food-fight ensued. Some asserted this proposition was as false as the first one, others claimed it was true, and a few quibblers insisted that it was horribly wrong to marry your sister regardless of any invisible, intangible, odourless elephants or gods anywhere at all.
Eventually we were led, by suitably Socratic means, to a reasonable consensus. Had the causative agent, whether elephant or diety, been even the smallest mote of dust, one could search for it empirically, the first step to establishing causality. But for incorporeal, metaphysical entities, it was not possible to empirically assert the truth or falsity of their existence, still less their properties. And of the two chalkboard statements, neither could be so resolved. One or both could be either true or false, but no empirical investigation could be framed to test either. Simply, the questions are out of scope and not subject to scientific enquiry.
There was a great deal more ground covered that semester concerning “Philosophy of Science,” but that was the lesson that made the greatest impact on me. And it’s the same point one finds made again and again on internet chat forums, often to little avail, but relentlessly true: science is unable and unwilling to confirm or deny the existence of God. Period.
And there the matter should end, one would think, but it is clear that for some, this all falls short of satisfactory. The malcontents in this instance are the Biblical literalists, who in effect insist on an empirical foundation for their particular spiritual beliefs and are enraged science cannot provide such. What’s worse: while science can neither confirm nor deny the existence of God, it cannot help but demonstrate that many Biblical events (the creation of Adam, the Flood of Noah, the Tower of Babel) simply cannot have occurred. For the Biblical literalists, this means there must be a fault in “godless” science, and hence they rail against it. More ominously, they demand for their own non-empirical beliefs the same prestige science has earned for itself through the empirical rigours of the scientific method. Where scientists see ‘no contest’, the literalists raise their battle cry of “Teach the controversy!”
Nonsense, of course. Even more absurd is the literalists’ claim that “science is a religion,” a claim they advance presumably to imply a corollary of “religion is science” and deserving of a place in the science curriculum. But consider what follows from this pernicious fallacy. If legislation were to compel discussion of non-empirical religion in science classrooms, surely it should also oblige, if only out of our sense of ‘fair play’, all places of worship to provide ‘equal time’ at the pulpit from scientists? In other words, would we not be obliged to also ‘Preach the controversy?’
I doubt many scientists would appreciate this modest proposal to pull them out of the labs and lecture halls and sending them off as guest preachers on alternate Sundays. But it won’t be hard to provide them with the text for a sermon.
“Brethren,” they can announce from the pulpit, “there is an invisible, intangible, odourless, elephant standing in this room–”
August 22nd, 2006 at 10:02 am
“The malcontents in this instance are the Biblical literalists, who in effect insist on an empirical foundation for their particular spiritual beliefs—and are enraged science cannot provide such.”
That is the crux of the issue. The creationists/ID’ers want the imprimatur of science without having to be bothered by the rigor of science. When they realize that science cannot help them, they have to redefine what science is to include the untestable and the supernatural.
August 24th, 2006 at 12:49 am
CR/IDers are fundamentally slothful - they demand to be taken seriously without hving done any of the work. Their strident arguments and harrassment seem very like the antics of Rainbow-Push et omnia generis alia. They are the Right’s very own pet entitlement pimps and welfare queens.
August 25th, 2006 at 9:47 am
The futility of arguments about the existence of God(s) is due to the absence of any operational definition. I propose one: a god is something that is worshipped, i.e. has at least one worshipper. This is not a statement of anything’s inherent nature (species, size, powers, etc.), but of a relationship — just as “pet” (whether cat, dog, or other) and “spouse” (male, female, or of any race) declare relationships and not inherent natures. Some people have one or more gods, pets, and/or spouses. Other people are godless, petless, and/or spouseless. Neither group need be compelled by the other group’s choices. If you worship the Sun (which exists), keep a pet rock (which exists), or marry a gorgeous whatever, much luck and happiness to you — but I need not engage in the same relationships.
I think this is a sensible, practical “test” of godhood, and it immediately detects goodhood in a number of objects — the Sun, the Moon, the Earth, idols, emperors — as well as in abstractions such as imaginary persons, who all exist in the same sense that the Government of the United States, or any other government exists. (Try pointing to a *physically existing* government; recall that people, buildings, equipment, and pieces of paper with ink marks on them, are not governments.) The endless theist/atheist argument about the existence of gods can be laid to rest, with this epitaph: Gods Exist, So What?
If I declare that this very real rock, instead of being my *pet* rock, is my *god* rock, because I worship it… well, okay, it *exists*, but what does that have to do with anything else?
Anyone’s worship of a rock, or the Sun, or Jehovah of the Bible, has neither coercive nor probative value. It doesn’t compel you to join in that worship. It doesn’t prove any other proposition, such as how the world came to its present state. It offers no causative linkage.
But Jehovah made the world, some say? I could claim that my rock made the world, with as much proof. Another could claim the Sun made the world, or at least the planets, with rather better evidence. And what does any of that say about whom we should marry, kill, love, or hate?
Deists, for example, believe the universe had a First Cause, whom they call God. They don’t believe the Bible was written by that First Cause, or that Jesus had more to do with it than any other human being. And Deists were among the USA’s Founding Fathers. (Christians merely lie when they claim mentions of that “God” as referring to their own.) So believing in gods, or even “God” by that name, doesn’t require adopting any part of the Bible, such as its rules.
Accepting all of the above still leaves factual debates like the existence of evolution, or the details of its workings, unaddressed. Turning back to the physically existing world offers the only hope of common ground.
Ethical issues also remain, and there the common ground must be shared values. We can hope to find consensus on rules where we have consensus on values. Where we lack that consensus, perhaps some rules are best left unwritten and uncoerced.
August 25th, 2006 at 9:58 am
Typo in the above: “goodhood” should read “godhood”.
A comma is missing after “any other government”.
August 25th, 2006 at 10:16 am
“Deists, for example, believe the universe had a First Cause, whom they call God.”
For “whom” the better word would be “which” (not implying personhood):
“Deists, for example, believe the universe had a First Cause, which they call God.”
August 26th, 2006 at 1:05 pm
I find it hard to imagine that someone could read the sentence that begins this entry and not see where the discussion was going. And yet…. Do you remember the Bashful Bobolink? It was the creation of Al Capp, in the comic strip Li’l Abner. It was the national treasure of Lower Slobbovia, and the distinctive thing about it was that it could not be seen, nor heard, nor felt; the people made long trips to not see it. I recall that the National Review praised Al Capp as a good conservative (which he was; the amazing thing is that NR thought so).
August 27th, 2006 at 1:19 pm
This is a test