On HU
Featured Archive Post: Ng Suat Tong on Tony Millionaire, love, and monkeys.
A electronica dance pop downloadable mix.
Jacob Canfield tries to find a motion comic that does not suck.
Kailyn Kent reviews Bart Beaty’s book, Comics vs. Art.
Jason Dittmer responds to my review of his book on Captain America and nationalist superheroes.
Me on Alun Llewellyn’s sci-fi classic The Strange Invaders, and why dystopias are always utopias.
RM Rhodes on Iain M. Banks and the problems with genre.
Charles Hatfield on why Maus is not glib (Voices from the Archive.)
Vom Marlowe puts together some links to Youtube videos showing artists inking.
Utilitarians Everywhere
Slate kindly let me plug Johnny Ryan’s Prison Pit #4.
At Splice I talk about Nate Silver and the morality of prediction.
Other Links
John Horgan on teaching evolution to creationist students.
Choice Joyce compares pro-life groups to anti-prostitution feminists.
Amanda Hess argues that porn stars aren’t any more likely to have been abused as children than other women (that is, they are fairly likely to have been abused.)
Alyssa Rosenberg on why James Gunn shouldn’t be involved in bringing Marvel’s Captain Marvel to film.
David Brothers on why he writes about race and comics.
This Week’s Reading
I reread the four volumes of Johnny Ryan’s Prison Pit, read C.L. Moore’s Vintage Season, and started Auden’s Selected Poems. Also read a preview of David Wojnarowicz/James Romberger/Marguerite Van Cook’s “7 Miles Per Second,” which is great. And reading John Christopher’s “The Possessors,” which is also pretty fantastic.
I finished the Earthsea books. The fifth one was mostly pointless, and the sixth was a novel-length epilogue to the third and fourth ones… which I guess does fit with the genre series.
Read a couple comics by Vincent Fortemps, whose work I love, abstract-ish monoprints.
Why, why did I read that Rosenberg article? Ah well, Gunn created one of the best female characters in a “superhero” film with Ellen Page as Boltie in Super. That’s all you need to know, not reading a bunch of jokes as if they were meant seriously.
And I’m reading dueling bios: Peeters’ Derrida and Howe’s Marvel Comics. I wonder which’ll have the most petty, back-biting characters.
Is that Benoit Peeters who writes comics?
In re Rosenberg’s article, there is also a follow up about Gunn apologizing: http://thinkprogress.org/alyssa/2012/11/29/1261551/guardians-of-the-galaxys-james-gunn-apologizes-for-sexist-homophobic-blog-post/
Derik: “Is that Benoit Peeters who writes comics?”
Yup.
By the way, I just read Come le strisce che lasciano gli aerei by Vasco Brondi (w) and Andrea Bruno (a). Andrea Bruno in glorious color!
I don’t know anything about Gunn, really. But jokes and humor can be quite aggressive, and are often a way through which sexism (and other prejudice) is expressed. I don’t think that’s an especially controversial insight.
Good for Gunn for apologizing, though.
I read that Nate Silver book! Or read a few chapters and skimmed the rest. The foxes and hedgehogs part did stand out as being a little self-serving and not acknowledging that in order for foxes to have little pieces of grand theories to combine in a cautious vision, someone had to invent the grand theories in the first place; and also that empiricism is itself a grand theory. Overall, though, I was impressed by how well he wrote and that he was able to illustrate his arguments not just with case studies, but with some philosophical arguments. He’s better read than a lot of stats wonks and he does have a sense of historicity.
To me, the arguments he was making about caution and precision and that the job of the moral statistician is to report reality as he finds it and not as he would like it to be were all mind-numbingly obvious, but I’ve heard that Silver has gotten a lot of flack from political players from his views, hence the kind of defensive tone of his really not very controversial book. It’s probably like he says, in science or (now) in sports these views are commonly accepted, politics is just an arena where they have taken a long time to penetrate.
If there’s any bone I’d pick with his argument, it’s that he doesn’t really acknowledge the extent to which reporting the outcomes of statistical models can affect the things the models are studying. For instance, he talks a lot about his model that predicted how well baseball draft picks would do, but it doesn’t occur to him that someone who’s been predicted to do well might get a little more slack and support in a rough first month than someone without that advantage?
I mean, that’s why politicians think it’s more moral to predict the outcome they prefer: because they have a sense that by making that prediction in public, they push reality in their preferred direction.
I think that if you’re going to use the word “prediction” you should probably actually mean it, because that word means certain things, and otherwise you’re just borrowing the halo of science for your unscientific observations. But I don’t think it’s right to ignore the impact your scientific observations will have on the discussion either.
Anyway Nate Silver aside, I read something called “The Psycho Ex Game” which is nutty LA scriptwriters and rock stars dissecting their past relationships, and was co-written by a rock star and a script writer playing a letters game. Heady stuff. And I am reading a book by Jessica Hagedorn now, “Dream Jungle,” about the Philippines.
In other surprisingly on point wonkish stuff, Rachel Maddow’s book about military spending is anecdotal but does strike straight at the heart of a very serious problem for the US right now.
I feel like Silver does talk a bit about prediction affecting outcomes…I can’t think of any examples right now (and he doesn’t mention the one you do there), but…wait, he definitely talks about it with terrorism, where he says that if you prevent it obviously your predictions won’t have worked. He talks about it in a couple of other places as well, I think.
What’s the Maddow book? That sounds pretty interesting.
And…you do something with stats in real life, don’t you? I think you’ve mentioned this before, but could you remind me what it is?
What extra something was I supposed to get out of the Horgan “teaching evolution to creationist students” article? Read like your standard creationists are stupid but I’ll treat them (sort of) nicely article.
Suat, fair enough. I liked that he talked a bit about where evolutionary theory is weak (pointing out some of Richard Dawkins’ misunderstandings particularly.) And it seemed in general less condescending than these things can be (which isn’t to say that it’s not condescending.)
Y’know…I can’t remember if I mentioned reading Gail Carson Levine’s Fairest last week…but I read it some time in there. It’s pretty good…though not quite as good as Ella Enchanted, I don’t think.
Ahhh, should have read the whole thing through then! That’s good to know about Silver, I suppose my only complaint now will be the defensive tone of the book, which is kind of understandable when you remember that he was being attacked by pundits at the time.
The NYT reviewed Maddow’s book “Drift”: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/15/books/review/drift-by-rachel-maddow.html?_r=0 It’s a very centrist book, there’s nothing really new or radical about her arguments, but at the same time if you’re one of those people who cares about the budget military spending is a pretty glaring area we should be addressing.
I have a quantitative undergraduate degree and did a social research course in England with a quantitative thesis, and now I’m looking for work on the East Coast. If you know of any basic statistics + social science jobs, please pass them along, I’m looking for work at the moment ^^.
From that “teaching evolution to creationist students” article ( http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/2012/11/20/what-should-teachers-say-to-religious-students-who-doubt-evolution/ ), some of the students’ remarks:
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“I personally do not believe in the theory of evolution. Nevertheless I am open to changing that belief if presented convincing evidence.”
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Nonsense, you won’t. No matter what mountains of evidence are presented, you’ll refuse to accept they’re “convincing enough.” (The human condition: inability to shed cherished beliefs, no matter what pesky reality offers up. And, it’s held up as a virtue! Demonstrating “faith,” morally-forceful “staying the course”..)
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“Even though I still believe in creationism, I have a better grasp of evolution after gaining a thorough understanding of the observations and scientific materials that support it…Since everyone is entitled to his own beliefs and opinions, there will always be conflict between both views.”
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Yes; but as Daniel Patrick Moynihan once said, “Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.”
(From http://www.physics.smu.edu/pseudo/SciMeth/ , with more quotes along that line and an explanation of that nasty ol’ Scientific Method.)
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“I don’t mind believing in evolution, but the only part I refuse to believe in is that man evolved from apes…
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To that student it’s all about “belief,” not about knowing.
As far as one is capable of knowing anything with absolute 100% certainty when perceiving reality through these fallible brains of ours, anyway. (Why, we could be plugged into the Matrix and not know it!)
Alas, it’s the fact that (as just demonstrated in the preceding sentence) that science in general will concede that it hasn’t crossed every t and dotted every i, which gives religious fundamentalist imbeciles the entry-point to mount an attack; contrast science with what claims to be absolute, certain, revealed TRUTH: http://wesleyanarminian.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/ceatingd.jpeg .
Have gotten to the point in the excellent Einstein bio I’m reading ( “Albert Einstein,” http://www.amazon.com/Albert-Einstein-Biography-Albrecht-Folsing/dp/0140237194 ) where he has decided to shed the primacy of the more “reality-based” physics for that of mathematics as an intellectual tool with which to pursue the appealing but nonexistent goal, the Unified Field Theory, that would waste the last three decades of his life, and turn him into a scientific irrelevance.
If only he’d followed his own advice, or been willing to apply to his own work along that line the gentle critique he applied to the attempt by Hermann Weyl (a brilliant mathematician) to achieve a Unified Field Theory:
“Your argument is of wonderful homogeneity. Apart from agreeing with reality it is certainly a magnificent achievement of pure thought.”
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…Regardless of the facts that science presents to the world I will believe that God exists and what is in the Bible is the truth.”
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But, what kind of truth? As historic account, archeology has proved the Bible to be full of fabrications; as spiritual truth, one needs to follow the “cafeteria” approach, it’s so laden with massive contradictions. One goes from primitive brutality (if a man doesn’t grow a beard, or if your children are disobedient, they should be stoned to death!) to perceptive wisdom. Even Jesus — who should’ve been privy to the plans of the Almighty — screwed up when he said that the end of the world would come to pass in the lifetime of those listening to his words.
To apply that primitive, ancient stuff to planetary motion, the structure of the atom, biochemistry and whatnot, is beyond ludicrous.
Thoughts on the subject from the great H. L. Mencken:
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A man full of faith is simply one who has lost (or never had) the capacity for clear and realistic thought. He is not a mere ass; he is actually ill. Worse, he is incurable.
We must respect the other fellow’s religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart.
The believing mind is externally impervious to evidence. The most that can be accomplished with it is to induce it to substitute one delusion for another. It rejects all overt evidence as wicked…
The Christian church, in its attitude toward science, shows the mind of a more or less enlightened man of the Thirteenth Century. It no longer believes that the earth is flat, but it is still convinced that prayer can cure after medicine fails.
It is often argued that religion is valuable because it makes men good, but even if this were true it would not be a proof that religion is true. That would be an extension of pragmatism beyond endurance. Santa Claus makes children good in precisely the same way, and yet no one would argue seriously that the fact proves his existence. The defense of religion is full of such logical imbecilities.
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More at http://www.watchfuleye.com/mencken.html
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It is the dull man who is always sure, and the sure man who is always dull.
What the World’s contention amounts to, at bottom, is simply the doctrine that a man engaged in combat with superstition should be very polite to superstition…
By what route do otherwise sane men come to believe such palpable nonsense? How is it possible for a human brain to be divided into two insulated halves, one functioning normally, naturally and even brilliantly, and the other capable only of such ghastly balderdash which issues from the minds of Baptist evangelists? …He not only becomes anaesthetic to objective fact; he becomes a violent enemy of objective fact. It annoys and irritates him. He sweeps it away as something somehow evil. . .
It is the natural tendency of the ignorant to believe what is not true. In order to overcome that tendency it is not sufficient to exhibit the true; it is also necessary to expose and denounce the false. To admit that the false has any standing in court, that it ought to be handled gently because millions of morons cherish it and thousands of quacks make their livings propagating it—to admit this, as the more fatuous of the reconcilers of science and religion inevitably do, is to abandon a just cause to its enemies, cravenly and without excuse. It is, of course, quite true that there is a region in which science and religion do not conflict. That is the region of the unknowable.
The most curious social convention of the great age in which we live is the one to the effect that religious opinions should be respected. Its evil effects must be plain enough to everyone. All it accomplishes is (a) to throw a veil of sanctity about ideas that violate every intellectual decency, and (b) to make every theologian a sort of chartered libertine. No doubt it is mainly to blame for the appalling slowness with which really sound notions make their way in the world. The minute a new one is launched, in whatever field, some imbecile of a theologian is certain to fall upon it, seeking to put it down. The most effective way to defend it, of course, would be to fall upon the theologian, for the only really workable defense, in polemics as in war, is a vigorous offensive. But the convention that I have mentioned frowns upon that device as indecent, and so theologians continue their assault upon sense without much resistance, and the enlightenment is unpleasantly delayed.
…One may forgive a Communist or a Single Taxer on the ground that there is something the matter with his ductless glands, and that a Winter in the south of France would relieve him. But the average theologian is a hearty, red-faced, well-fed fellow with no discernible excuse in pathology. He disseminates his blather, not innocently, like a philosopher, but maliciously, like a politician. In a well-organized world he would be on the stone-pile. But in the world as it exists we are asked to listen to him, not only politely, but even reverently, and with our mouths open.
I believe that religion, generally speaking, has been a curse to mankind — that its modest and greatly overestimated services on the ethical side have been more than overcome by the damage it has done to clear and honest thinking.
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More at http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/H._L._Mencken
Mencken’s great…but his first sentence there rather contradicts the sweeping assurance of the last paragraph.
I became pals with a Bircher in an intro to physical anthropology class. He had to bring up the possibility of divine guidance in every … single … class. Almost came to blows with the professor. After about a month, the Bircher decided to leave. Allowing that shit into a science classroom really slows down the learning process.
” Allowing that shit into a science classroom really slows down the learning process.”
Sort of depends on what counts as learning, I guess — and on whether efficiency in education is always the goal.
If you’re wanting to learn about something other than science, then go ahead. If I were to take a biblical studies course and constantly brought up how evolution contradicts what’s being taught, that would get pretty tedious for those trying to learn about the subject at hand.
I read a triple-feature of New Genre comics: Prison Pit #4, the first trade of the recent Prophet revival, and Dungeon Quest #3. There’s some really funny stuff in that one. And I finished vol. 3 of Fantagraphics’ Mickey Mouse collections, which is just fabulous from start to finish, and a lovely reprint package all round.
I found that Horgan article super-bizarre, in that he doesn’t make the obvious and bog-standard distinction that would mitigate the criticisms of “Darwinism” that he mentions. Namely, the distinction between the facts of (1) common descent (i.e. the fact that all extant organisms are descended from a common ancestor and therefore genealogically related to one another in various complicated ways) and (2) that common descent explains the existence and distribution of various biological traits, on the one hand, and, on the other, (3) “Darwinism”‘s (or, really, neo-Darwinism’s) favoured explanation of those facts (viz. natural selection). Both of the “prominent thinkers” he mentions are criticising (3), not (1) and (2), which are about as well established as you can possibly get in science.
(And, really? Karl effin Popper’s asinine “criticism”? That was an embarrassment to philosophy of science, an embarrassment echoed in recent years by Jerry Fodor and Tom Nagel. It’s obviously a thing for [some] successful philosophers as they get older and even crankier. In any battle between an extremely well-established empirical theory and flourishing research program, on the one hand, and an a priori argument from the armchair on the other, well, I know which side my money’s on)
Studying ancient models of the universe is a useful intellectual exercise and critical to understanding human history, but the modern “theory” of intelligent design is just bad science, not least because pretends to scientific standards of evidence but is based in faith in the correctness of the biblical creation story, aided by a shifty, elasticizing reading. Not only does it not deserve time in a science class where students come to learn about the natural world, it doesn’t even really belong in biblical studies, but in modern religious studies and sociology.
Speaking of “ancient models of the universe,” Tim Kreider’s “Science Vs. Norse Mythology: http://crimesagainstdivinity.wordpress.com/2012/05/13/odin/
From Kreider’s site ( http://thepaincomics.com/ ), part of the accompanying artist’s statement:
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It’s always both cute and pathetic listening Fundamentalists try to use the language of empiricism to try to defend their wonky myths and superstitions, sort of like seeing chimpanzees wear little human clothes or very young children trying to use polite etiquette. They can approximate the form, but they just don’t get the content. They don’t understand what the word “theory” means; they confuse correlation with causality; they argue by analogy; they can’t keep a grip on logic. I’m not going to waste any space in this artist’s statement explaining or arguing for the theory of evolution; it’s like having to argue for the theory of gravity or electricity. And anyway, there’s no point in engaging advocates of Creationism or Intelligent Design in debate as though they really accepted enlightenment values or could be convinced by evidence or persuaded by rational discourse. There’s no reason to talk to them at all. They just want to believe in God. They can go ahead and believe in Him. But they won’t be winning any Nobel prizes any time soon.
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Elsewhere…
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Bill O’Reilly has officially upped the ante on crazy right out of the gate by declaring this year that Christianity is not a religion, but a philosophy, thus circumventing all of that pesky “freedom of religion” stuff we so commonly have to deal with when considering, well, any other belief system. By doing this, he concludes that having Christmas displays up complete with nativity scenes on public property without allowing others alongside it doesn’t violate the First Amendment anymore.
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http://crimesagainstdivinity.wordpress.com/2012/11/30/but-bill-o-is-still-an-idiot/
And, “Pat Robertson’s Moment of Clarity”: http://crimesagainstdivinity.wordpress.com/2012/12/01/that-might-be-all-he-gets/
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Noah Berlatsky says:
Mencken’s great…but his first sentence there rather contradicts the sweeping assurance of the last paragraph.
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You mean his…
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It is the dull man who is always sure, and the sure man who is always dull.
[and]
I believe that religion, generally speaking, has been a curse to mankind — that its modest and greatly overestimated services on the ethical side have been more than overcome by the damage it has done to clear and honest thinking.
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Why, rather than being “always sure,” here Mencken says he believes; and even adds the qualifier, “generally speaking.”
In contrast, the fundies give us, “The [insert name of the one and only valid Holy Book here] is the direct, unerring word of God! The absolute Truth!”
countdown to Noah citing Feyerabend, 10…9…8…
I don’t need to cite Feyerabend! You did it for me!
There’s obviously major practical reasons not to spend time discussing off-topic and non-scientific theories in an educational setting. But. There’s also a claim by folks who teach science and by folks who do education that educational endeavors, and especially science ones, are always open-minded, and that rational discussion is open to all enquirers. The fact that certain kinds of discussion have to be excluded on practical grounds is entirely understandable, but not entirely consonant with science’s own propaganda.
I thought you’d like that.
Anyway, it’s perfectly consonant. Not only are time and resources are limited, as you note, but also the very act of discussing “alternative” “theories” can give a very misleading impression of their support empirical or otherwise. I recently read a great analogy to make this point, which I’ll quote at length, Mike-style:
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“I think the problem with the Behe [a famous creationist] reference is not neutrality per se; it’s that if you’re presenting scientific information in a non-specialist forum you have an obligation not to present controversies in a way that causes non-informed readers to misinterpret the size and nature of the controversy within the field.
Consider the following, analogously structured, report to uninformed Martians as to the distribution and activities of the human population:
“The southernmost (Antartic) continental landmass has approximately fifty habitations, notably Vernadsky Research Base, Asuka Station, and Orcadas base, along with a number of habitations on surrounding islands. The main industries in these habitations are scientific research, exploration, and dog sledding. Transportation is by aircraft and (in the summer months) by boat. Helicopters have largely taken over from fixed-wing aircraft for short journeys. Others in the human population, for instance David Wallace and Eric Schleisser [who were discussing this issue in comments], live on the other continental landmasses.””
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David Wallace was talking in particular about Alvin Plantinga’s article on Religion and Science at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (one of the best and most respected among such encyclopedias). But obviously the point holds more generally. (It’s also a reason why wikipedia is often very misleading). A biology class isn’t precisely an uninformed audience, but it’s close enough.
Sure. But that’s an ad hoc appeal to authority you’ve got there (i.e., consensus within the field.) On that basis,you’re shutting down a more open discussion of first causes. Again, as a practical matter that’s got to happen. But the general scientific dis of religion is that it uses ad hoc appeals to authority rather than being open to pure reason and open discussion.
The point is simply that science is an institution and an ideology, and functions as such. That means that people who are not consonant with that institution and ideology are silenced through power, not through some sort of absolutely even-handed effusion of truth. And folks who are using power to silence others (for whatever practical and understandable reasons) could maybe stand to think about that fact, rather than condescending to and/or damning the folks who are being silenced.
I guess that’s why I kind of liked Horgan’s discussion, as I said. There’s relatively less hand wringing about the stupidity/evilness of the people he’s talking about, and relatively more of an admission that it’s a practical classroom issue.
He does actually think that creationists are stupid and/or evil though. From a posting “based…on talks that [he has] given recently and on an afterword that [he] wrote for the paperback edition of [his] book [The End of Science]”:
“My claim is that science is a bounded enterprise, limited by social, economic, physical and cognitive factors. Science is being threatened, literally, in some cases, by technophobes like the Unabomber, by animal-rights activists, by creationists and other religious fundamentalists, by post-modern philosophers and, most important of all, by stingy politicians.”
So Mike, Charles, Jones, and most of his readers (in comments) probably understood the article correctly.
Science is being threatened by animal rights activists, huh? That makes me want to throw up.
But you’re probably right. I like Horgan’s writing and would like to think better of him than that…but so it goes.
Well, teaching science is not the same thing as doing science, and most teaching is just one long appeal to authority. (all right, that’s hyperbole). And I really, really, really, really, really don’t think that science teachers or scientists, or polemicists, or whoever else need to worry about hurting the feelings of American creationists. (Condescension deliberate)
But, look guys: [30,40+ comments of dancing around] followed by [the scientific-realists banging angry fists, spluttering outrage at Noah’s perversity] and, eventually, [everybody getting bored and the thread trailing off until the next time]. There, everyone, I just saved you several hours of your lives, and much vexation. You’re welcome!
Ah well; people are welcome to bang away if they’d like. There are worse ways to waste time on the internet, surely.
I’d agree that teaching is not doing science. But if teaching science is not doing science, then the epistemic appeal to science to justify the claims as something other than an appeal to authority is pretty dicey.
As I’ve said before, I think intelligent design is a pretty thorough betrayal of the bits of Christianity that I find worthwhile/moving, not least in that its a capitulation to science.
Incidentally, have you read any post-Feyerabendian philosophy of science? That’s not a veiled diss — there’s a lot of stuff you’d probably like in the SSK program and the general field of social studies of science and technology that came out of it. (Although a lot of people in that field would bristle at the claim they do philosophy of science, their work is definitely underpinned by various philosophical theses)
I’ve read here and there over the years, but I’d certainly take recommendations if you’ve got any.
alas, it was never really quite my bag — my training was more in mainstream philosophy of science, which back then was positioned as antagonistic to social studies of science (or vice versa, if you prefer), so my reading was not that extensive. The two fields might still be antagonistic, for all I know; I haven’t at all kept up with either.
I did really like Ian Hacking, who straddles the worlds of sociology of science and mainstream philosophy of science. I particularly liked his book on multiple personality disorder, Rewriting the soul, but I read it about 13 years ago [!!!], when I had somewhat different philosophical commitments, so I don’t know how I’d feel about it now.
I haven’t really kept up either; my MA thesis was on the 19th century intelligent design (William Paley in particular), and how it influenced evolutionary theory. For that I read various history and philosophy of science things — but that was (gulp) going on 20 years ago. Shapin and Schaffer’s Leviathan and the Air Pump is a pretty amazing book…but quite old now.
Have you read Desmond and Moore’s biography of Darwin? It’s very strong on the sociological angle; IIRC, they convincingly argue that the famous 20-year gap between Darwin’s discovery of evolution by natural selection and his publication of the Origin was time he spent in amassing the reputational capital he knew he’d need to sell the theory to the scientific establishment. I really liked that book, too.
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Noah Berlatsky says:
…There’s also a claim by folks who teach science and by folks who do education that educational endeavors, and especially science ones, are always open-minded, and that rational discussion is open to all enquirers…
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Indeed, both the scientific community in general and as individuals are capable of being closed-minded and rejecting revolutionary ideas. Yet — as I keep seeing in this Einstein bio I’m reading — eventually experiments come up to validate the rejected theory, and either slower or faster, the majority of scientists come around to accepting the new paradigm.
In contrast, to question religious tenets is heresy; God’s Law is said to be unchanging and eternal, and so forth.
Religious understanding is capable of evolving; today’s Jews, even the Orthodox ones, are hardly the “stone her to death!” types of millennia ago. The biggest jerks in religion usually (Buddhism a rare exception) are the “refuse to evolve” fundamentalists…
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The point is simply that science is an institution and an ideology, and functions as such. That means that people who are not consonant with that institution and ideology are silenced through power, not through some sort of absolutely even-handed effusion of truth…
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But, sooner or later, the shocking new discovery becomes generally accepted. The once universally-accepted existence of the Ether, the “steady-state” theory of the creation of the universe are dead as dust. In contrast, how much “progress” has religion made? Are the “world was made in one day” or the Virgin Birth now publicly rejected as silly superstitions by the Christian hierarchy?
That Jews and Christians don’t go around stoning disobedient children and beardless men to death indicates not that they’re consciously rejecting those parts of the Bible and its teachings, but ignoring them. (Like the anti-Semitic stuff that occasionally spews from a beloved old Granddaddy.)
And to call science an “ideology” thereby neatly crams it into a pigeonhole where noxious stuff — Nazism, Communism, Objectivism, etc. — that is rarely “reality-based,” where anything that contradicts The One And Only Absolute Truth is utterly rejected; not temporarily, as all-too-often happens in science, but forevermore.
Which is guilt by association, as when Karl Rove in a GOP ad put the photo of a Democratic war hero running for re-election beside a photo of Osama Bin Laden. Georgia voters got the message; the Democrat lost.
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I guess that’s why I kind of liked Horgan’s discussion, as I said. There’s relatively less hand wringing about the stupidity/evilness of the people he’s talking about, and relatively more of an admission that it’s a practical classroom issue.
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It certainly is a practical classroom issue! If a biology teacher were to come out and say the Virgin Birth was an impossibility, the ruckus that would result! Fox News screeching, lawsuits about “religious discrimination”…
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As I’ve said before, I think intelligent design is a pretty thorough betrayal of the bits of Christianity that I find worthwhile/moving, not least in that its a capitulation to science.
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Yes, it’s an asinine and self-destructive tactic. It’s like liberals trying to defend the public-school system in corporate terms, or trying to make the Classics look “hip.” And can lead to the religious, instead of remaining in their sphere of authority, venturing into science and — as Tim Kreider noted — coming across “like seeing chimpanzees wear little human clothes or very young children trying to use polite etiquette. They can approximate the form, but they just don’t get the content. ”
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Jones, one of the Jones boys says:
…the very act of discussing “alternative” “theories” can give a very misleading impression of their support empirical or otherwise.
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Yes; it’s like here in Tallahassee, in the buildup of the war to Iraq, there was a big antiwar demonstration. In order to try and avoid being accused of “bias,” the TV news spent as much time focusing on the very few pro-war demonstrators. Thereby giving viewers the deceptive impression both demonstrations were equal.