I get the impression that Sam Harris didn’t like Francis Collins’ book:
If one wonders how beguiled, self-deceived and carefree in the service of fallacy a scientist can be in the United States in the 21st century, “The Language of God” provides the answer. The only thing that mitigates the harm this book will do to the stature of science in the United States is that it will be mostly read by people for whom science has little stature already. Viewed from abroad, “The Language of God” will be seen as another reason to wonder about the fate of American society. Indeed, it is rare that one sees the thumbprint of historical contingency so visible on the lens of intellectual discourse. This is an American book, attesting to American ignorance, written for Americans who believe that ignorance is stronger than death. Reading it should provoke feelings of collective guilt in any sensitive secularist. We should be ashamed that this book was written in our own time.
Just out of curiousity, has anyone seen a positive review of this book? The closest thing to it I’ve seen is David Klinghoffer’s, which is an interesting example of conflicted evasion: he tries so hard to praise Collins’ piety, but at the same time, Collins rips into ID…and Klinghoffer is a Discovery Institute fellow. His response is to get all soppy about the religion, but at the end to recommend some other book that tangles up religion and science, presumably without any ID bashing.
I’ve said it a few times now: I’m with Harris. Collins’ thinking is very unimpressive and embarrassingly shallow, and yet he’s trading on his reputation as a scientist to evangelize for theological nonsense. Personally, I think he’s setting back the idea of reconciling faith and reason a few centuries—I just don’t see how you can read his tripe without seeing it as clear evidence that religion rots your brain.
C’mon PZ, tell us what you really think! (I’m sure I’d have the same reaction, but I have no intention of inflicting on myself the pain of reading the thing.)
How much further back can the concept be set than “completely invalid”? The methods have been recognized to be inherently incompatible for quite some time now.
“…this God, if I was perceiving him at all, must be a theist God…”
God is a theist? Then what is this God God believes in? I’m inclined to call him Turtle. But what then does does Turtle believe in? Another Turtle, Turtle2?
Great essay! Collins can believe whatever he wants, but I had wondered how he got from a frozen waterfall to belief in a one particular religion that just conveniently happened to be one shared by a large number of Americans, rather than some other religion. By taking the time to follow Collins through on some arguments, Harris provides a more convincing rebuttal than if he had been glibly dismissive.
I am almost getting curious enough to read Collins’s book. It strikes me that for an eminent scientist, he’s unusually swayed by the kinds of arguments many formerly religious people might have entertained in adolescence and young adulthood, but ultimately found wanting. As I commented after the Salon essay, it doesn’t sound as if Collins has come up with anything new to say about God, but I’m becoming more interested in his book in kind of a gossipy “The head of the human genome project buys this stuff?” way.
Ugh. I could barely read his interview in Time about it, and only managed because I was sitting in the doctor’s office with nothing else to do. As PaulC just said, why that particular religion? Why not another? Has Collins ever considered that?
Collins’ Cascade Mountains and frozen waterfalls, Dembski’s fire rainbows…sheesh. Okay, I can understand looking at the pretty mountains, or at the sunset or whatever, and feeling a sort of presence in the universe in a vague way, but to leapfrog from this numinous experience to a worship of Jesus Christ? To the simplistic, literal (and to my literature-nerd mind, unfortunate and poetically bankrupt) belief in Scripture? Sorry, I just don’t get it.
Where are the fire waterfalls and frozen rainbows? Now, that would be something.
Yikes. The quotes from Collins’ book are damning enough without Harris’ commentary. I wonder if this will damage his career.
No, but I thought the review in Discover magazine (Sept 2006) was unduly mild; their biggest criticism seemed to be that Collins’ arguments were not new.
I have not read the book, but in interviews, it seems to me that the man (for all his intellect) is rather shallow in other areas, including emotionally. He’s just not convincing to me that he’s put thought into his theological stances, and they seem rather undeveloped.
Scientists that believe in God can be useful at this stage of our society. Think Dover Trial. You think if every scientist wintessing had been an athiest we would have won? I very much doubt it. Witnesses were carefully picked for being able to push the idea religion is compatible with evolution, so the trial was not against religion. Let us not trash them too much. We can of course be intellectually pure an end up losing in every court in the country, and speed up the days of the new Christian Taliban.
Yes, we would have won. The Dover case was decided on the law. What a concept.
Again, this temporizing with religious delusion has got the US where exactly, compared to all the other industrialized countries? And yet people keep recommending more of the same? Remember, insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting a different result.
You are implying that the judge was a religious bigot who would let his religious bigotry influence his legal decisions.
I heard an interview with Collins and another similar guy on Science Friday (8/4 episode) and they made me angry. They pulled out the old tripe that atheism requires more faith than christianity and heaps of arrogance. Why? becuase atheists must know everything about the Universe to not believe in the christian god. What complete nonsense, by that logic if you don’t have complete knowlege of everything then you have to belive everything. It would have been such a more interesting show if there had been an alternate viewpoint.
Hardly a review, but generally positive, was Cornelia Dean’s reaction from the Science Desk of the New York Times (July 25, available in the Archive). Dean calls author-scientists like Collins, Owen Gingerich, and Joan Roughgarden professionally and intellectually “brave” because they have the courage to “talk about” and “embrace” religion. She claims that these authors are bringing these two worldviews harmoniously together, while folks like Dawkins, Weinberg, and Dennett are working, dangrously, to keep them apart. A completely shallow and pointless — and, above alll, cowardly — piece of journalism.
The thing about Collins is that he has a big sloppy saccharine man-crush on C.S. Lewis. Now unlike you, PZ, I like Lewis. Oh, he was full of shit and all, but the limey could turn a phrase and make the unlikely sound, at least, sort of pretty. Which makes him dangerous and possibly evil, but I still admire the rhetoric. Even Philip Pullman (of “His Dark Materials” fame), the atheistic anti-Lewis, admits admiration for some of Lewis’s WRITING. But that’s not the same thing as being swayed by it. H.P. Lovecraft wrote some great stuff, too, but I’m not worshipping Chthulu over it.
Sam has an “American” fixation. Lose it, Sam. That’s so 20th century.
Sadly, Mr Collins is suffering from what the rest of us have come to regard as the “American disease”.
In this case, I think the “American fixation” is quite appropriate. Protestant fundamentalism and the intimate connection between religiosity and evolution denial are distinctly American phenomena. It just doesn’t exist in other countries, and to the extent that it does, it’s strongly influenced by the American evolution denial movements.
Sam has an “American” fixation. Lose it, Sam. That’s so 20th century.
Do you disagree with him? Somehow, I doubt that Collins had non-Americans firmly in mind when he wrote the book. At least not the non-Christian majority of them.
Then there’s THIS
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/ac_grayling/2006/08/religion_and_education.html.printer.friendly
Which puts it all very clearly
I get a kick out of some of the comments. One posts a random bible quote ” Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes and clever in their own sight. ” Which, I guess is supposed to make Harris feel bad for having the ability to think.
Another posts the same tired old lies about evolution, another asks why harris is so angry at imaginary god. Another asks atheists to prove there isn’t a god.
Do they ever come up with anything remotely worth addressing?
I love A.C. Grayling. Thanks, Tingey.
It’s amazing that Collins apparently knows no one that could have argued Harris’ points with him while he was writing this book. He may still have not accepted the opposite view, but to not have addressed it all is plain ignorance.
But, Harris’ conclusion is what matters. Quite chilling.
It amazes me to read so much contempt that both atheists and conservatives have for someone like Francis Collins. The atheist contempt flows freely here. On Bible-believing sites it is pretty much the same, though they don’t have such contempt for conversion stories there. They just want to put Collins through a theological inquistion to show how he can be so idiotic as to believe in evolution at all despite their supposedly superior wisdom that proves the Bible is true and everything else is a Satanic conspiracy.
As a scientist myself, I would wax lovingly about the power of empiricism in everything, as much as anyone could, and how mainstream science has gotten so much right, from evolution to neuroscience. Empiricism includes looking at the human nature that causes people to be so contemptuous about things they don’t understand, as if contempt is a virtue. As a liberal Christian who also had a conversion experience in my thirties, after my degrees and my faculty appointment, I know why people talk about them. They don’t expect to change the mind of someone like PZ that way. They are just expressing an experience that is more powerful than anything else they know, too compelling to keep quiet about. To have contempt for that is not wise. It’s just human. All sorts of people are like that, Sam Harris included.
It’s not turtles all the way down. It’s human nature all the way down. And all you smart guys who think your intellect has put you above acting out your nature could use a better mirror. Evolution hasn’t stopped, not biological evolution, cultural evolution or even spiritual evolution, if there is such a thing. It’s not just conservatives who say no, they know how both people and the world should be. Only they don’t, or they wouldn’t make such an ass of themselves over Francis Collins or whoever else comes along just telling their story.
Oh, horse pucky. It’s Collins who made an ass of himself with his piss-poor amateur philosophy and theology. He wouldn’t apply such low intellectual standards to shopping for a car, let alone to his science. His crappy book deserves all the abuse it’s gotten.
Only they don’t, or they wouldn’t make such an ass of themselves over Francis Collins or whoever else comes along just telling their story.
Francis Collins isn’t just some random guy off the street telling his story to whomever will listen. Because of his stature in the scientific community, it is imperative that the community speak up when a Francis Collins decides to use his credentials to convince people he is making a scientific argument for God when in fact he is not.
Ah, more data about human nature overwhelming intellect already.
Steve L. is an expert on low intellectual standards.
It takes intellect to suffer babbling fools?
Guess we should shut up about Ann Coulter too.
Bres would know.
So do people who have taken LSD or magic mushrooms. Big whoop.
Steve LeBonne:
Having read not only Judge Jones’ decision, and most of the transcripts, I concur with you. A position of either neutrality or affirmation of religion on the part of any witness called by the plaintiff really has no bearing on the outcome of the trial. It really was decided on the basis of the law.
I also think you’re right to hold Collins to a higher standard than he’s shown in his new book. He’s playing a bit too loose for my tastes. It’s a bit much to claim that there’s any sort of scientific case for belief.
But (you may not like this) in the big picture, it really is a good idea to have some believers (like me) on the pro-evolution side. You can’t hope to prevail if you rely only on the public schools and higher education. That’s too late; fundies start drilling this stuff into their kids in the churches, and many of those kids are going to have a hard enough time overcoming the propaganda on Darwin without also being forced to completely renounce the faith they were raised in.
By all means, let’s live as a nation under law, and decide cases like Dover on their legal merits, and let the scientific community decide what belongs in the science classroom. If someone within the community allows their personal beliefs to trump evidence, let’s call them on it to preserve what’s singular about scientific thinking. But let’s not make the mistake of turning our back on potential allies who may prove crucial to our success in other forums.
Strategicallly….Scott
Scott, I’ve never known you to write in this place anything remotely resembling the drivel I’ve seen quoted from Collins’s book, so I certainly wouldn’t lump believers like you, or for example Martin Gardner, in the same category as Collins at all. It’s the supposed “evidence from science” that’s the pitiful rubbish. While I will never be persuaded that religious belief is a good thing, in practice I have little quarrel with believers who are content with their own faith and don’t attempt to distort science in order to provide it with illusory support.
I will now go write 500 times, “I will close my HTML tags”! Bad boy. ;)
I know this is trite but what exactly is a conversion experience? I mean isn’t it simply a change of opinion? Choosing to live this way or that coupled with church. I just don’t see how peoples lives(and stats back me up on this) change based on their supernatural leanings. Convert/deconvert to me simply means agree/disagree.
They are not making statements based on him telling a story, they are making statements based on what he is saying and the obvious flaws in what he is saying in regards to science/faith.
What is somewhat offensive or should be to a fellow like you DavidD is the segregationist angle to his view. His God cannot be the God of the majority of the world past and present and thus they are excluded. If I was a member of those faiths his version would read even more ridiculous.
This is so much BS, anytime an atheist disagrees with an argument it becomes some form of angry. Why is it the flaws in the argument can’t be seen and discussed without being angry?
Empiricism includes looking at the human nature that causes people to be so contemptuous about things they don’t understand, as if contempt is a virtue.
Contempt is not a virtue, and I openly admit that there are a lot of things that I don’t understand.
However, Collins’ experience, “as reported”, is totally irrelevant. As a believer you may speculate that perhaps God spoke to him as he stood before the frozen water. That can only demote the frozen water to an irrelevant detail of the incident. Thus, it cannot be presented as a “sign” or “corroborating evidence”, etc. In fact, it doesn’t even need to be told. If Collins had only written “I was in the woods and I had a spritiual experience”, I would have left it at that. It doesn’t mean that I would understand it, but I wouldn’t laugh at it.
But, the three branches of frozen ice as support is just delusion. This is not some guy who doesn’t know probability theory. I bet he has three blue pens on his desk, or three yellow folders in his office, or three dollar bills in his wallet, etc. And what do you think that muslims do when they see three of something? Convert?
To lie is also human. Somebody lied.
Isn’t Gardner a fideist?
Red alert Robert O’Brien sighting. He of the award for saying stupid things over at Dispatches from the Culture Wars.
And as usual he has his pointed response to a post here. Sarcasm.:-)
If someone within the community allows their personal beliefs to trump evidence, let’s call them on it to preserve what’s singular about scientific thinking. But let’s not make the mistake of turning our back on potential allies who may prove crucial to our success in other forums.
Isn’t your insistence that theistic scientists are crucial to the promotion of science as a useful tool a “personal belief”? Or do you have evidence that theistic scientists are “crucial” for promoting science.
The best promoters of science in recent memory were not theists.
So Scott: put up the evidence.
College drop out/failed comedian/usurer Ed Brayton renamed his “Idiot of the Month” award after me back in 12/2004.
Brayton is a hypocritical ass. He got on my case when I called a creationist a lying scumbag or something, then it took me two seconds to find a post on his own blog where he talked about burying somebody alive. After I pointed this out to the asshole, guess what? He banned me. What a turd.
I laughed recently when Ed recently “realized” that Casey Luskin was a liar and it was okay to say so. Gee, what the fuck took Ed so long? I guess now he’s an “uncivilized” prick like the rest of us.
FWIW, I don’t feel contempt towards Collins, just idle curiosity about why he believes his arguments are persuasive. I am familiar with them, and have given them more serious consideration in the past, but I really don’t find them persuasive. Perhaps it is the depth of his “conversion experience” and I would understand if only I had one myself, but my beliefs about somebody else’s subjective experience is a poor substitute for evidence.
I have had the experience during my life of being persuaded to believe things that I initially might not have. Many things are counterintuitive. For instance, I still find it at some level counterintuitive that the fast fourier transform works; it’s amazing that you can do what looks like quadratically many multiplications in O(n log n) time. But I’ve gone through the basic argument on numerous occasions and I see that it works.
Harris quoted Collins about why it would be “less interesting” with respect to free will if it were obvious to everyone that God exists. I admit that it would be less interesting if some creator had simply wired our brains with certainty of his existence, but why would it be uninteresting if one could come to that conclusion through disciplined study? I cannot speak for religious people, but my experience has been that disciplined study and reflection on the question of God makes his existence seem less necessary and less compatible with observation. This is the opposite of my experience in other areas, and I find it interesting that a man like Collins would have a substantially different view.
I am open at some level to the idea that his conclusion is right, though not that his arguments are convincing. I’m far from contemptuous. I just wonder why his subjective experience is so obviously different from my own.
Must really chap your bum then that Ed exposes your ‘arguments’ after all that failure he has had to endure huh?
Is there something wrong with being a usurer? Is this an attempt to belittle a good man because he earns an honest living?
It’s Collins who made an ass of himself with his piss-poor amateur philosophy and theology. He wouldn’t apply such low intellectual standards to shopping for a car, let alone to his science.
Hey, it could work…
“One day I went shopping for a used car. As I rounded a corner, I saw what could only be a symbol of the Holy Trinity gleaming in the sunlight! I knelt on the oily gravel, knowing that my search was over.”
GH,
There’s lots of good literature on conversion experiences — you might start with William James’ “Variety of Religious Experience”. Much of it doesn’t have to do with a church.
It takes intellect to suffer babbling fools?
Obrien replies:
That has been my experience among the commenters here.
Indeed, I can’t figure out any other reason why you haven’t been banned from the site.
Humor dicatates we all should suffer babbling fools like yourself, at least on occasion.
AndyS,
Give me the abridged version:-)
In my opinion, suffering fools gladly doesn’t really take intellect or lack thereof. There is a judgment call involved, though. Dangerous fools ought to be stopped, and a desire to be nice to everyone is not a virtue in this case. Educable fools ought to be educated, time permitting, but this is a lot of work. Harmless, hopeless fools might as well be ignored. Some people find it easier than others to do so, and that’s just a question of personality.
I’d say that Collins tends towards the dangerous side only because his eminence puts him in an influential position, and he’s unlikely to be persuaded either. But as bad bears go, I’d say he’s more the muffin-stealing kind than the man-eating kind (let’s see if anyone gets the reference) and should just be watched closely rather than fought aggressively.
Martin Gardner describes himself as a “philosophical deist”. He freely acknowledges that he has no evidence or arguments that an atheist would find convincing. He also likes to laugh at the Fundies and others who think their bizarre beliefs are supported by evidence.
I don’t think that simply calling his trashy book what it is- trash- is very “aggressive”. And that’s all I’ve seen happening.
The Smile of the Day award goes to Windy. :-)
It sounds like you’re calling out Jason.
If he was calling out Jason, he would have used “gibbering fools,” instead.
I know this is trite but what exactly is a conversion experience? I mean isn’t it simply a change of opinion?
Oh, my, no. Quite the emotional experience, a feeling that suddenly everything in the universe makes sense, that you are now a part of something much grander than anything you could have imagined. Think of the scene in the Blues Brothers: John Belushi, listening to James Brown, with the ray of light shining on him, “THE BAND!!!” It’s an epiphany. Triggers every non-rational button in a person, and is usually quite intense. In fact, there is a whole subcateory of religious topics that focus on how to keep one’s sense of awe after the pinnacle is over. Usually this is covered as a sermonette to adolescents coming home from church camp, falling back to reality.
GH,
Give me the abridged version:-)
That’s like asking for the abridged version of evolution. Doesn’t lead to a useful discussion. If fact, that is exactly what many of the anti-evolution types do, isn’t it? Get the abridge version then mock it. Let’s not follow their lead.
If he was calling out Jason, he would have used “gibbering fools,” instead.
quite right.
in fact, I’ve been trying to get Mr. Obrien to expound upon something he stated over on ATBC (the ‘Thumb’s forum).
Obrien stated (in response to guess who):
Do you and hypothetical pizza delivery dude read Plato, Plotinus, Boethius, Aquinas, and Rousseau, among others, when trying to iron out your theology? Cuz’ I do. Do you and hypothetical pizza delivery dude try to incorporate your mathematical/statistical knowledge into your God-belief as I do?
ever since then, I’ve been quite curious to see him spell out how he has particularly incorporated his “mathematical and statistical” knowledge into his “God-belief”.
he says it’s nothing like Slaveador’s drivel, which got me all the more curious…
Steve:
Thanks for your thoughtful reply, to which I can add nothing other than ‘right on.’ I couldn’t agree with you more. It’s not the vague hand-waving that’s disturbing, its the implication that science can validate Collins’ or anyone else’s beliefs that is, as you say, ‘rubbish.’
GWW:
OK, that’s a good question. I would say that my argument is not so much that you have to have scientists who are believers defending evolution (though it certainly helps), but that whoever defends evolution does so without indicting religion in general, regardless of their personal views. I’m with Lawrence Krauss on this one, where he writes that science is not against faith, but against ignorance.
Now, having said that, you did ask for evidence to support my view, and I do have two things that come to mind. The first is anecdotal: in my experience, bashing religion or (more likely) giving the impression of bashing religion is a poor instructional strategy, and instruction is the name of the game. Whether you’re dealing with high school students, or the general public, it’s about education. People don’t understand evolution or natural selection and, as we all know, human beings are disposed to fear what they don’t understand. Coupling, even unintentionally, a general critique of religion with a defense of evolution reinforces the (usually) false impression that evolutionary biologists are pushing a competing belief system.
Now, I know it’s just my experience, but try to keep in mind that when it comes to explaining evolution and natural selection, I’m an expert witness. It’s what I do for a living, and I’m good at it. I have found the best strategy, the one which leads to the greatest number of students receiving the information with an open mind, is one which asserts that faith is not incompatible with evolution, much less science. It helps if you can show students, for example, that the author of the most-used high school biology text in the country, Ken Miller, is an observant Roman Catholic. Miller appears in segments of PBS’s ‘Evolution’ series to make exactly that point, GWW, and I must tell you that exposure to Miller, and to the positive statements endorsing evolution by John Paul II and similar examples has a powerful effect on the class. Remember, many students have already been indoctrinated in their churches. Showing living, dynamic counter-examples of this effectively challenges their assumptions without making the direct frontal assault on their faith.
The second observation is historical: faiths which historically have made their peace with evolution have contributed positively to the acceptance of the idea and the general promotion of science. Those which have not made their peace have become a stumbling block to science. Consider, for example, Mexico, largely Catholic, where there are government-operated public schools named after Darwin. There’s a wonderful article on this in Science, found here:
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/310/5749/787
Similarly, the widespread acceptance of evolution by Anglican clergymen within a decade of Huxley’s debate with Wilberforce helped spread the teaching of evolution throughout the British Empire. In contrast, in America, the rejection of evolution by fundamentalists has led to a rather different situation.
What do you think?
SH
So the argument goes, Collins is particularly bad for writing a book about his personal religious views because he is a respected, visible scientist. In PZ’s words he is “he’s trading on his reputation as a scientist to evangelize for theological nonsense”. (In PZ’s vocabularly “theological nonsense” is redundant.) Conservatives make exactly this sort of claim about Chomsky with respect to “socialist nonsense.”
PZ, it’s pretty hard to see that you have any interest in “reconciling faith and reason” when you use phrases like “religion rots your brain.” By dialing down the harsh rhetoric you might at least make some space for some intelligent discussion. Who knows, you could begin to show that atheists even have a little respect for some religious people. Or is a takedown of, say, Gandhi just around the corner?
You have some wonderful gifts, but the gift of the cynical, sarcastic, over-generalizing putdown is one we could do without. Why model Ann Coulter?
I can’t speak for PZ, but there are plenty of religious people I respect. Just not ones like Collins, who bullshit and/or lie in claiming that science “supports” their particular brand of theology, and who trade on their reputations in a crass attempt to inflate the value of their propaganda and mislead the naive.
And to amplify, if for example a devout scientist takes- as many do- the Stephen Jay Gould “nonoverlapping magisteria” line, while I might personally doubt the philosophical coherence of that idea I certainly would not feel motivated to pick a quarrel.
AndyS:
It’s clear that PZ is not interested in this, and has never claimed to be, but Collins apparently is. That’s why it’s sort of sad, even for someone who doesn’t share the goal of “reconciling faith and reason”, to see him falling back on arguments that don’t help his case very much. Where’s the inconsistency?
As far as the statement “religion rots your brain” goes…
OK, I’m way more accommodating to religion than PZ is, and I think it’s possibly a basic human need, shared by most people except for a small, fixed percentage who are just baffled by the whole thing. So what I would say is that critical thinking and open inquiry are hobbled by dogma. As long as there are questions you cannot ask, possibilities that you cannot entertain, you will always have blind spots in your reasoning (for instance, I think Gandhi had plenty of blind spots, as much as I admire the man).
The only real difference between my formulation above and PZ’s is that mine’s more verbose and beats around the bush. When I read “religion rots your brain” I cannot really disagree. Read what I just wrote! I sure don’t see it as helping one to think. That doesn’t even make it bad. Alcohol kills brain cells too, but it’s nice to knock back a few with friends from time to time.
What I like about PZ is that he isn’t as circumspect as I am. He’s far from Ann Coulter. Coulter’s problem is not just that she’s offensive, but that her position doesn’t make any sense and it’s doubtful that she believes half of her own spew. PZ may be tactless, but I think he’s honest. If PZ thinks “religion rots your brain” then he should say so. He’s going to think it anyway, right?
Science isn’t, but it’s methods applied to religious ideas makes them seem, well, superflous.
PZ is accurate here.
Faith is anti-reason thats exactly why it is called faith, religious faith is best called an irrational faith.
I enjoy PZ’s style and apparently so do many others given the blogs popularity. If directness turns folks off perhaps they should develop thicker skin.
Scott Hatfield,
Your comments above are right on the money. The effective reaction to harsh, ignorant rhetoric from the religious right is not harsh, angry, and often ignorant rhetoric from scientists emphasizing atheism and ridiculing religion. That is, it’s not effective if your goal is to sway people, the vast majority of whom have a religious upbringing. It does work pretty well, however, if your goal is create an echo chamber for like-minded souls.
In the posts and comments on Pharyngula I see a general failure to distinguish between science on the one hand and religion and philosophy on the other. Atheism is philosophy, not science. To me — as an atheist — that’s an important distinction. God and the supernatural are by definition not the provence of science. To use language common here “any idiot knows that.”
Of course I don’t think the people using that sort of language are idiots — they just don’t know much about persausion. Some of course may have no interest in persausion, but they are IMO a small minority; most of us want science to be better understood and appreciated.
You write:
and
I think one reason PZ and others make these general condemnations of religion and faith is they fear the crazed religious right, they fear laws will be passed and enforced that pervert science, or that the nature of our society will change in some fundamental and harmful way if too many of the wingnut, religio-crazy notions become generally accepted. And there is some evidence to motivate their concerns: a person like GWB becoming President of the USA and the Dover court case being two relevant data points.
My claim is that PZ and those in his echo chamber are lacking in both faith and science. Faith, because the Dover case, for example, came to an intelligent conclusion; they need more faith in their fellow citizens. Science, because they are not applying scientific thinking to the cause they champion. There is some real science available in the area of persuasion, about what works and what doesn’t. You rather eloquently and succintly said “bashing religion is a poor instructional strategy, and instruction is the name of the game.” I don’t think we’d have to look very far to find scientific evidence of that.
“Infinitus est numerus stultorum.”
As is evidenced by the percentage of evolution deniers in our country.
“Doubt”? Doubt?!
The concept is grotesquely obviously invalid. This is clear to anyone with even a passing familiarity with the nature of science and a mind free of the overwhelming need to reconcile theological nonsense with their reason. By holding such a belief, those people harm the coherence of their own minds, and by sharing it, they endanger the cognition of others. Demolishing the point is not just a privilege but an obligation.
GH,
I was under the impression that intelligent discussion in the face of disagreement was part and parcel of the apprieciation of science and that popularity had little to do with it.
Scott
The first is anecdotal: in my experience, bashing religion or (more likely) giving the impression of bashing religion is a poor instructional strategy, and instruction is the name of the game.
Well, that’s not my experience. So much for the anecdote.
Coupling, even unintentionally, a general critique of religion with a defense of evolution reinforces the (usually) false impression that evolutionary biologists are pushing a competing belief system.
This is a strawman. The issue is whether it’s crucial science to have theists promoting science. That was your claim.
I have found the best strategy, the one which leads to the greatest number of students receiving the information with an open mind, is one which asserts that faith is not incompatible with evolution, much less science.
I never thought it was incompatible. Is it possible that was because my parents weren’t fucking idiots? Also — any data to support that your stategy is the “best”? Or is this just “personal belief” again?
The second observation is historical: faiths which historically have made their peace with evolution have contributed positively to the acceptance of the idea and the general promotion of science.
Not only is that observation historical, it’s a non-sequitur. The issue isn’t whether a religious person could or could not contribute positively to the promotion of science. The issue is whether it is “crucial” to the promotion of science as you claimed that it was.
You seem to believe that religious people are so fucked in the head that unless you reassure them that they can simultaneously accept scientific facts and believe in God, they won’t be inclined to do so. I call bullshit on that, Scott.
I can’t speak for PZ, but there are plenty of religious people I respect. Just not ones like Collins, who bullshit and/or lie in claiming that science “supports” their particular brand of theology, and who trade on their reputations in a crass attempt to inflate the value of their propaganda and mislead the naive.
Word.
PZ may be tactless, but I think he’s honest.
Yup. And if I wanted tact, I’d be hanging out at one of those really really really boring blogs where people sit around and praise each other for how fucking civilized they are.
There is some real science available in the area of persuasion, about what works and what doesn’t.
Tell us more, Dr. Goebbels.
AndyS:
The goal of Pharyngula is not to “sway” the “vast majority.” It’s a blog in which PZ writes what’s on his mind and interested parties comment on it.
If it’s an echo chamber, then it’s a curious one. There is spirited debate among people spanning the spectrum from atheist through religious, but usually sharing the view that evolution is the most reasonable explanation for the diversity of life on earth. I often get into long, tedious arguments with people that agree with me about 90% of the way on whatever I wrote. Creationists also post, though I don’t list the troll-feeding sessions under “spirited debate.” Sorry, they just aren’t presenting rational arguments as far as I can tell.
Here’s an idea: if your goal is neither to sway the majority nor create and echo chamber, but to encourage frank discussion among interested parties, one way that works “pretty well” is to say what’s really on your mind and not mince words about it. This seems to be the main accusation leveled against PZ.
That is, it’s not effective if your goal is to sway people
What if our goal is simply to shame people into shutting the fuck up? You know, like how the vast majority of high profile racists who abound in this country are routinely shamed into shutting the fuck up about their racist beliefs.
Do you have any real science on methods of shaming people into shutting the fuck up?
Because I want people to be free to believe in whatever bullshit they want to believe. But I also want them to know when to shut the fuck up.
Take Sen. George Allen. He just learned a harsh lesson in when to shut the fuck up. Science can’t “prove” that lighter-skinned people aren’t “better” than darker-skinned people. George Allen may believe otherwise but guess what? He’ll be shutting the fuck up about his racist bullcrap.
And notice: we don’t have other public figures making statements about whether racism may be justified or any other such nonsense. They may be thinking it, sure. But they ain’t saying it. They are shutting the fuck up. They know if they give voice to their thoughts they will be humiliated and perhaps even ruined.
This is a good thing. And when the day arrives when religious dipshits are ashamed to give voice to their thoughts that “my holy book is as useful for understanding biology as science” that will also be a great day.
AndyS:
Now you’ve lost me. To be perfectly clear, Dover was decided by one “fellow citizen”, Judges Jones, if you’re implying it was a jury trial. But on PT and Pharyngula, the conventional wisdom was always that the plaintiffs would win. If you want to call this “faith” in the constitution, rule of law, the integrity of the American judiciary, or “citizen Jones” that’s fine with me. It was the creationist side that seemed to believe Jones was a corrupt activist judge who would rule according to political affiliation.
BS, the vast majority of faith claims go directly against everything we know of the world. That is certainly not reason by any stretch of the imagination.
Oh good grief. PZ’s blog is popular, people like reading what he has to say. That is a good thing. To call this an echo chamber is rather bizarre given the level of discussion and disagreement that occurs here daily from many different sources.
PZ’s popularity likely means his direct style is tapping into a cultural current. More often than not people who enjoy what he has to say. Does this make his right all the time? Of course not but his direct and to the point style obviously makes sense to alot of people. And PaulC summed it up nicely, It’s PZ’s blog. He can write wants he wants and people are free to express opinions on it.
Mere assertion.
are you ever planning to back up any of your claims, or do you just plan on pasting witless one-liners ad infinitum?
do tell.
Great White Wonder,
Collins said his holy book was not to be used as a science text book. He emphasized that Genesis was metaphorical. You seem to be so, pardon me, enraged at some image in your mind about what religion is that you loose all perspective. Profanity and name calling are (need I say this?) not a form of rational discussion, not attributes of well reasoned position, not useful in science and reason. If you can’t take the heat get out of the kitchen.
Paul C,
Yep. A judge appointed by a conservative Christian administration.
AndyS: Exactly. But you seem to be missing my point. Most commenters on Pharyngula expected Jones to rule in favor of the plaintiffs, just as he did. It was a strong case that many good people had worked hard to present, and though the judge was a Bush appointee, he was widely understood to be fair and competent. So the “faith” that you claim was lacking was very much in evidence if you would look back at some of those postings. The only one I recall claiming Jones would make a corrupt ruling based on political affliations was on the other side. I think it was Dave Scot.
If you can’t take the heat get out of the kitchen.
Oh, I think I can take the heat, Andy.
Collins said his holy book was not to be used as a science text book. He emphasized that Genesis was metaphorical. You seem to be so, pardon me, enraged at some image in your mind about what religion is that you loose all perspective.
And you seem to enjoy pretending that there aren’t a group of very high profile folks running around who promote the idea that the Bible’s “science” is as good as that of professional biologists.
How do we get those people to shut the fuck up, AndyS?
Is Francis Collins’ book going to get those people to shut the fuck up? What does your “real science” say about the effectiveness of Collins’ book in getting folks like, say, Senators and Presidents to shut the fuck up about their religious bullshit?
Judge Jones = a self-identifying religious dude who I respect.
For the most part, he keeps his self-help shit to himself.
I don’t see him writing a damn book extolling the wholesome goodness of being a good judge and documenting all the reasons he chooses to worship a deity.
But perhaps that’s because his religion — unlike Collins — does not mandate such behavior.
Maybe Judge Jones became an atheist during the trial while listening to Ken Miller. That wouldn’t surprise me either.
I think it was Dave Scot.
actually, all the ucommonly dense folk did, and Dembski himself led the charge. IIRC, he even made very specific predictions, and made side bets which he lost in entirety.
They weren’t the only ones. If you look back, a great majority of evangelicals firmly believed they had the case in the bag.
I can understand that. They thought (erroneously) that it wasn’t an establishment case to begin with, as “ID” wasn’t creationism.
no accounting for irrational denial.
GH,
He does and I am. What is your point?
I doubt you have any evidence at all for this claim. You don’t seem to appreciate that every human being acts on “faith claims” all the time. Science establishes a certain kind of empirical knowledge. It’s incredibly useful. It’s also important to understand and appreciate it — not worship it or extend what it does into areas where it doesn’t have an effect.
Hardly anything we do is based on the kind of knowledge that science provides. How I drive my car is not based on any study of science literature but rather on my experience and judgment which are somewhat informed by my understanding of science but only in the loosest sense. Mostly it’s based on my personal learning experience of having driven the car before.
When I see someone doing something that looks to me like child abuse, I don’t turn to science to help me decide whether or not to intervene. I don’t think you would either. We develop a sense of what is right and wrong that is sometimes informed by science but is largely a result of our upbringing and personal reflection.
Most of the religions of the world would say you have a duty to intervene if you witness child abuse — science is not involved. If you only think of religion with respect to the claims it may make with respect to the supernatural, you are quite ignorant of the subject. To use your word, religions make a “vast” number of claims about what’s right and wrong. Some of those are don’t jive with science, some of them are ridiculous, but most of them are outside the scope of science and necessary for a functioning society.
Remember, many students have already been indoctrinated in their churches. Showing living, dynamic counter-examples of this effectively challenges their assumptions without making the direct frontal assault on their faith.
Frontal assault on their faith?
Shit, man, you think they haven’t seen South Park?
Your whole approach views kids with contempt. It’s an approach based on chickenshit fear not of the kids reactions but on their PARENT’S REACTIONS. And guess what? That is exactly how those kids parents want teachers to feel: fucking afraid of their fundy wrath.
My point is that (1) I am not afraid of their religious bullshit and I’m going to call them on it; and (2) I’ve got the law on my side; and (3) I’ve got science on my side; and (4) they need to learn to shut the fuck up or they are going to get torn a new asshole like the dipshits in Dover.
And kids need to learn to appreciate that this is a GOOD THING. A secular government where we base decisions on rational thinking and not on religious dogma is a GOOD THING. The First Amendment is a GOOD THING.
This habit of coddling religious dipshits and sugarcoating everything so it goes down easy for them is a slippery slope and my friends I believe we are half the fucking way down.
The good news is that there are blogs like this and others where people who aren’t religious can express their amazement and frustration that a large segment of society in 2006 (1) continues to believe in this Supreme Invisible Being bullshit and (2) even more outrageously, continues to believe that their belief is for some reason commendable — the more deeply held, the better!
It’s time to bring an end to that. People can continue to believe whatever the fuck they want but damn, man, they have to learn to keep their mythological baloney in their home and in their church where it fucking belongs because BABY, IT’S BULLSHIT.
Ok, rebut it.
Hardly anything we do is based on the kind of knowledge that science provides. How I drive my car is not based on any study of science literature but rather on my experience and judgment which are somewhat informed by my understanding of science but only in the loosest sense.
My stools loosened when I read these two vapid contradictory sentences. And then I made a mental note in my head: “AndyS is a concern troll”.
Andy, you should participate in the child abuse thread we made over on ATBC.
there you will discover that there are in fact, objective ways of determining what constitutes child abuse.
your input surely would add to the thread.
look back a few pages, you’ll find it there.
…and yet another witless one liner from professor Obrien.
when ya gonna knock some heads there, doc?
AndyS,
Oh here it comes. Of course everyone knows that is not all it claims to do. But all it’s claims are backed by alleged events that directly contradict what we know of the natural world. How is this even debatable?
and I find this ridiculous:
How is something outside the realm of science? And if it is how would we ever perceive it’s existence anyway? If it’s part of the natural world it can eventually be studied. To say it’s outside the reach of science seems to me a form of the ‘gap’ argument.
Are your ill-informed rants a product of sexual frustration?
I never thought about it. Why, are you horny?
Ok, Obrien is officially a boring twit.
wake me up if he EVER says anything worth hearing.
obviously he can’t be goaded into speaking his mind, let alone detailing any position whatsoever.
you keep knockin’ those heads there, doc.
*snore*
Now that was actually funny Robert.
Same to you GWW
GWW:
You know, it’s reactions like this that make people leave the teaching profession. I’m a high school science teacher, and I have experience teaching in the public schools, and that ought to give me a little street cred, guy. I mean, you don’t have to agree with me, of course, but it’s a little disheartening to think that you could so blithely discount the experience of a real science teacher. It’s seems symptomatic of the general lack of respect for teachers that now seems so ingrained in our popular culture, and I expected better from you for some reason.
After all, it’s easy for someone to shoot off comebacks in an anonymous blog. I do what I do in the public eye. For the record, I teach at Bullard High School in Fresno, California, here:
http://www.geocities.com/epigene13/bullard_natural_history
I’ve publicly debated (and defeated) ID types in my neck of the woods. A PDF description of this event along with a partial audio recording can be found on Calladus’s site, here:
http://atheists.meetup.com/70/files/
A review of that debate which praises my contribution (I’m rather proud of it) is found here:
http://atheists.meetup.com/70/boards/view/viewthread?thread=1687479&lastpage=yes#3075343
I support science education with dues to several professional organizations, including NCSE. When it comes to defending evolution, I walk the walk, not just talk the talk. What comparable experience could you cite that would lead me to believe that you’re any more informed on this issue than the average citizen?
Curious…Scott
You know, it’s reactions like this that make people leave the teaching profession.
reallY?
must be some pretty thin-skinned teachers.
Funny, my direct experience is that the only teachers I know who consider leaving the profession are in districts where parents are allowed to put undue direct pressure on teachers to violate state teaching standards.
translate:
teachers who have had parents yell at them for teaching evolution, or unpopular literary titles in english class, or… well you get the picture.
i can’t recall any teacher I’ve ever known consider leaving teaching because of something somebody said on an internet blog.
nobody here is knocking your contributions as a teacher, Scott, but don’t think histrionics are gonna make your point for you either.
Would you really consider leaving your profession if GWW spoke up about keeping religion out of the public school system at a PTA meeting, using pretty much the same wording as above?
Most of the religions of the world would say you have a duty to intervene if you witness child abuse —
Since when?
AndyS:
Perhaps you actually are familiar with “most religions”. However, I suspect you are projecting your take on your religion to all the others. Probably like most people here, your primary reference is the Bible. I consider the Bible to be full of references to child abuse.
“He that spareth his rod hateth his son: but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes.” – Bible (King James Version), Proverbs 13:24
In Genesis 22, Abraham bound Isaac and placed him on an altar and was ready to sacrifice his child.
Deut. 21:18-21 provides that if “If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, which will not obey the voice of his father, or the voice of his mother, and that, when they have chastened him, will not hearken unto them” that he be stoned to death by all the men of the city.
Elsewhere there are instructions as to what to do with the children of defeated foes. Variously, they are all to be killed or just the virgin girls taken as slaves.
Why have so many in the church hierarchy hidden priestly abuse of children and thus guaranteed that more would suffer? No ‘true Christian’?
Maybe it depends on what you think is not abuse. Or maybe the New Testament over-rides the Old wherever the bible contradicts itself.
Focus on the Family is one high profile defender of paddling, switching or hand spanking children.
One doesn’t need religion to seek to prevent child abuse. The golden rule is all that is necessary. Science can easily explain why empathy should be expected in humans. Aspects of empathy have even been identified in other primates.
One word: ‘circumcision’
Faith and religious belief in the supernatural are concepts that reside solely in the mind of believer. These things, these “conversion experiences” no matter how life changing or real to the person having them are not something transferable, commutable to anybody else. They are personal, subjective experiences which cannot be totally duplicated and universal for anyone else to experience. These experiences are not empirical.
Science at least tries to make the experiences and phenomena of the universe understood universally by all humans through logic, mathematics and experiment. Religion has always been divisive and promoting of seperation among us and with the rest of nature. Science without political or religious bias attempts to find some unity and common answers to what we experience.
Having once been a “born again” Christian and now in the agnostic camp my experience, which granted cannot be transfered per vatum either to others, has been one of the most clarifying and self-empowering experiences I have had. I mean that is seeing life without the filter of traditional religious beliefs to cloud my search for answers, not “the truth” but facts.
In a 13.7 billion light year expanse of a universe, saying we can ever know all “the truth” is ludicrous. Francis Collins said we are arrogant if we are atheists, because since we do not know everything, we cannot discount there being a God. Perhaps that is so, but it is breathakingly more arrogant, in such a tremendously large universe, to say we know that we have “the truth” and it is in one religion called Christianity. Who displays the most hubris then? I think that is part of this immature “the whole universe revolves around humans” and especially Americans syndrome.
I think that most religious beliefs can hinder us from fully using our minds to reason how the universe works, not why it is here, but how it operates. Which is what science is trying to accomplish. I have become very comfortable with accepting uncertainity. That is not scary or depressing, just accepting reality as we understand it to this point.
Also being agnostic has not given me some green light to be an “immoral” person. Being ethical is to me is just part of being a mature, whole individual, living in cooperation with the rest of society. I learn that from upbringing, culture, philosophy and from history. I do not require religious creeds, or fear of eternal punishment to scare me into being moral. Morality for me is being a responsible human being and concerned with just more than my own desires or comforts.
The most immoral creed of all.
fear of eternal punishment “the most immoral creed of all”
And so absurdly contradictory of the image of a caring,loving God. Would a loving, caring human father do that to his children?
Carlie:
This ought to be taken as evidence by all concerned that one of the main values of religion is social. Anything that gives you warm fuzzies (particularly at that age) is easily mistaken for some really important insight into the meaning of life. If church camp was a conversion experience, then so was your first rock concert, or passing a joint around.
The funny thing is that my experience growing up Catholic was that the church kind of shoots itself in the foot in navigating around this issue. On the one hand, if you’re paying attention, you are training to be on guard for meaningless pseudo-religious experiences that are just social warm fuzzies or false mysticism. On the other hand, you are ultimately expected to believe that there is some genuine experience of being in the presence of God that can occurred with disciplined prayer.
Catholic education (at its best) does such a good job warning against falling prey to superstition, that when it is all done, it takes an almost heroic level of cognitive dissonance to maintain any faith. At another level, Catholicism promotes its own set of superstitions (bleeding statues and what not) but one gets the sense that this is the belief of virtuous peasants rather than an informed faith. The problem is that a truly informed faith is in my experience utterly self-defeating.
Speaking of statutes, on CNN this morning there was a story about some melted chocolate, at a factory I believe,(didn’t see the whole story) that hardened into what looks like…you guessed it…a Virgin Mary statue and of course the devoted are sending flowers to the place and headed there to pray and cry and lay prostrate…whatever. And so this is a display of faith inspired reason and mature human behavior? This will sound elistist, but what a richly intriguing universe and inner life these people ignore and deny by being so self-absorbed in something so idiotic and embarrasing as this display of worshipping accidental “icons”.
Icthyic:
You’re missing the point. In the event of a controversy in my area, I’d be thrilled to have an articulate parent make some of the observations that GWW made. But that’s not teaching. I was referring to the strategies that, in my experience, work in the classroom.
You also miss the point when you suggest that I am engaging in histrionics. Sure, people don’t leave the teaching profession because of one remark on an Internet blog. They leave it because of a steady accumulation of events that leave them with the distinct impression that their education and experience are not valued.
GWW’s casual dismissal of same rubs me the wrong way. OK, so I’ll plead guilty to being touchy but consider: more than half of those who enter the teaching profession leave it within seven years! That’s all teachers, not just science teachers, so there’s clearly a bigger issue at stake than how evolution is to be taught in your local schools.
For what it’s worth, I take a back seat to no person in my desire to promote and defend the teaching of evolution and offer my previous post as evidence to that effect. That doesn’t make my advice on how evolution should be taught correct, but I think it does suggest that my views are informed.
One of the reason I read this blog is that I know that PZ is not just talking the talk, he’s walking the walk. Like me, he’s in the trenches, not on the sidelines. When he talks about evolution, I pay attention and take it seriously even when I disagree with it, because I know he puts it on the line. If someone blithely poo-poohed his experience in that area as mere anecdote, I’d jump all over that person. I suspect a lot of you guys would, too.
At any rate, thanks for listening to a teacher vent.
Scott
GH,
The decision to go to war in Iraq is pretty far out of the realm of science, even though it is not something supernatural that is occuring over there. And science has nothing to contribute to the decision to keep US military forces in Iraq or withdraw.
Science is the foundation of medicine but doesn’t have anyting to say about who has access to healthcare.
There are many very real, tangible life-and-death things — not the least bit supernatural — which science does not address. It’s an incredibly important and useful tool but we need others as well. Not that it matters, but personally, I subscribe to a kind of pragmatic, atheistic, materialistic humanism as a means to fill that gap.
If church camp was a conversion experience, then so was your first rock concert, or passing a joint around.
your first Scuba experience.
skydiving..
river rafting…
etc. etc.
some people are predisposed to having extreme experiences imprint overly much on their pysche. However, all of us are affected by these kinds of experiences to a greater or lesser extent.
when one claims to be “born again”, I agree that this is most likely just an extreme reaction to a similar kind of experience, perhaps combined with a predisposition towards such reactions, along with maybe some cognitive dissonance that already existed that was “resolved” by this kind of reaction.
sorry, but that’s how it breaks down when I analyze it.
I’d be thrilled to have an articulate parent make some of the observations that GWW made. But that’s not teaching. I was referring to the strategies that, in my experience, work in the classroom.
and was GWW refering to classroom strategies in his rant?
was the point of the thread classroom strategies?
nope.
it was essentially this:
trading on his reputation as a scientist to evangelize for theological nonsense.
this was essentially the attitude that GWW is railing at.
are you suggesting the better approach is to teach acceptance of religious ideologies within your science class?
Note that I’m not suggesting anybody belittle a students beliefs, but it’s just as inappropriate to coddle them as well, regardless of your personal leanings.
If a student wants to interrupt a class with irrelevancies to the teaching of science, and won’t accept discussing the issues outside of the science classroom, they deserve what they ask for.
so I agree with the sentiment GWW expresses, if not the implied method you would extrapolate into the classroom.
this does indeed, have to stop somewhere.
and yes, I do realize that based on your district location, you have more problems to face in that area than most.
It sounds like you are doing the best you can, AFAICT.
This place is for discussion of hypotheticals and whatifs. GWW expresses the desire to completely remove all reference to religion from anything that engages empricism in theory or experiment, instead of the current reality which is quite a mess, you must agree.
You personally might be able to compartmentalize these issues quite well, like Ken Miller or Wesley Elseberry, for example. that isn’t always the case, as I’m sure you’re aware.
another reason why a general approach that completely excludes discussion of religious philosophy within the context of a science classroom all the more desirable.
now, did you want to extend GWW’s desires to the national political stage? again, currently I find the desire to eliminate religion to be entirely impractical and not of a politically expedient nature, especially in the fight to rid us of the more extreme evangelical movements.
historically, the thing that works best is marginalization.
kind of the way things are proceeding, slowly but surely.
but it takes extreme viewpoints to drive the issue forwards, and PZ and GWW represent the necessary extreme viewpoint quite well.
addendum:
well, re-reading GWW, he was kind of referring a bit to classroom strategies, but the point I’m making still stands, error aside.
continuing:
That’s all teachers, not just science teachers, so there’s clearly a bigger issue at stake than how evolution is to be taught in your local schools.
mentioning this, by it’s very nature, is histrionics.
you must admit, it has absolutely nothing to do with anything GWW said.
that said, yes, we do have a problem.
now if you would kindly use your experience to actually examine what the real causes are of that problem, not related to the reactions of internet bloggers, that would be useful.
yes, one of the problems is a feeling that your work is not valued. this is a common thread in high turnover positions, regardless of whether we are talking teaching or nursing, etc.
but who should value the work of a teacher?
can I make some assumptions from being a teacher myself?
-students
-fellow teachers
-administration
-parents
how important would you value each of these?
another problem is that no full time teacher actually works full time – it’s more like a 60 hour work week in some cases.
falling benefits
ever decreasing pay scale
increasing class sizes
am i missing anything?
yes, all of these things contribute to the pressure on maintaining teaching as a career.
However, I’ve seen over and over again reports from teachers who have given up because in addition to all these pressures, they aren’t protected from parents who constantly pressure them to teach what THEY want to have their kids taught.
no, it’s not just evolution, but that’s still a pretty common one.
and since this IS a forum where we discuss evolution and the antievolution movement, it perhaps merits more specific discussion than it might warrant in general.
Feel free to vent, but criticizing GWW rants you must agree will not be productive in solving the problems you address in your later posts, namely the problem with teachers leaving at an every increasing rate.
Ok, enough with the back and forth. I do have some ideas on this, based on experiences with how hospitals have started dealing with nurse burnout, if you’d like to hear them.
Ichthyic:
You raise so many interesting points that I can’t possibly respond to them all. I think you may be right: I may be overreacting to the subtext, rather than the substance of GWW’s message. If I gave the impression that it’s essential to have theistic scientists to defend evolution, then I apologize. But it doesn’t hurt, in my opinion.
What does hurt me is the suggestion that I have no respect for my student’s intelligence and that I’m not concerned about them, but only how their parents will react. It’s quite the opposite; I demonstrate my respect for the students’ views in a very intentional fashion, which tends to eliminate the potential for parent conflict up-front while making students more likely to consider alternative views. If I had simply said that, and nothing more, I probably would have been more effective. But I tend to be long-winded, sorry.
If you’ve got resources or thoughts on how to help the teaching profession avoid burnout, by all means, share them, because I’m feeling it, let me tell you.
Thanks for your response….Scott
no need for apologies when we have clarity. I, like GWW, really would dispense with civil discourse in favor of clarity any day. GWW just takes it to an extreme I’m not personally comfortable doing most of the time.
I do miss the commentary on PT though. It’s been over a year since the last post from GWW there.
If I gave the impression that it’s essential to have theistic scientists to defend evolution, then I apologize. But it doesn’t hurt, in my opinion.
I essentially agree, depending on context. I had an argument with PZ over on the ‘Thumb about that very issue, and how politically inexpedient it was at this point in time to shrink the tent to exclude theistic evolutionists, or strict evolutionists who profess to be Xian, like Miller and Elseberrry. I even provided several links to Xian organizations like the NON evangelical lutherans, that work hard to promote evolution both in public schools, and even in their own private schools as well.
but, like i said, I think the extreme viewpoint serves to move the discussion forward as well.
I remember arguing with the animal rights folks when i was a grad student in zoology at UC Berkeley, and how pissed I was when we were forced to start filling out “animal research utlization forms” in order to get permission from the administration to do research on our fish.
having to justify my methods and husbandry protocols to somebody who hasn’t the slightest clue as to the value of the research involved irked me to no end. However, as time wore on, I saw that even though their position was an extreme one (the end of all animal experimentation), that extreme position DID end up producing a crop of zoology grad students that knew a lot more about animal husbandry than they would have otherwise (and there WERE some actual horror stories, though those were very rare).
anyway, I digress.
Yes, I spent several hours speaking with someone who had been a trauma nurse in an ER for 20 years (!), and had finally burned out.
basically, what is happening now is that many hospitals are putting in secondary support networks for the nurses to “vent” as it were. People they can talk to, both adminstrative and not, to relay ideas, provide administrative feedback on a timely basis, alleviate fears, or just plain vent.
While it sounds logical and simple on the surface, it was only quite recently (according to him) that hospitals started seeing the long term benefits to reducing burnout and providing these support services for their staff.
nurses, like teachers, take a long time to train. It was becoming seriously unproductive to have such a high burnout and turnover rate.
Apparently, many hospitals are now beginning to install similar support networks for their staff, with good results.
I see absolutely no reason why a similar support system wouldn’t help out with the burnout teachers experience as well.
Even when I was learning to be a teacher as a grad student, there were often profs who essentially played just that role, without defining themselves as doing such (and of course not getting paid for the extra work). I don’t mean the prof assigned to the course, either; there was usually a seperate person assigned to organize the TA’s for the larger bio classes, and this person usually filled the role. It made us all feel like we weren’t out there winging the whole thing on our own, and had someone to gripe at when things weren’t going all that well.
Just like doctors in a hopital, most profs are simply too busy to take on any more roles than lecturer/researcher/publisher/grad student instructor (even that stretches most of us too thin). It just needed to be formalized.
For a specific secondary school, the administration would have to encourage the utilization of the support network, as well as alleviate any concerns for privacy issues, but it should work, and be cost effective (otherwise hospital administrators NEVER would have even come close to adopting such a plan, trust me).
especially with NCLB, a high turnover rate in a particular district could be quite costly.
In the theme that “there is nothing new under the sun”, I have little doubt that something similar to what the hospitals are implementing is already being experimented with in some districts, or has already been implemented.
I haven’t a clue where to look for the information that might document plans or implementations of such, however.
I would think it wouldn’t be all that difficult; float the concept past some of the folks at NCSE, and I’d bet somebody there has heard about something similar somewhere.
IIRC, there are always large national (yearly) secondary teacher meetings that discuss issues like teacher burnout as well. You might try tracking down the minutes from recent meetings to see if anything like this is being discussed already.
If you want to pursue it further, I’d enjoy hearing what you find out.
make a post about it over on ATBC; I’m sure others would like to hear as well.
BTW, it’s easy for me to avoid burnout, as I never have made teaching much of a career; it’s always been a secondary mission attached to another issue. like teaching undergrads while being a researcher at a university, or teaching classes on basic biology and natural history while working as a science director for an NGO, etc. I taught at the secondary level for a couple of years, and must say I didn’t care for it much, mostly because the students didn’t seem to care for it much either.
I prefer to teach at the college level, or at the elementary school level. both sets of students were far more intersted in the subject material than the high school students I taught. I realize that may be a bit selfish on my part, but there it is.
Like Steve LaBonne, I can’t speak for PZ. IMO, it is important to realize the difference between respecting someone for some accomplishments and respecting their religious beliefs. Merely being a member of a certain group doesn’t carry much respect, least of all when it is a religious association. Instead ask: has this person improved the lives of others? led to greater understanding of the universe? created worthwhile artifacts? etc. Criticize them to the extent that they don’t, praise them where they do.
Just as a point of reference: Bres Mac Elatha and Robert O’Brien are using the same IP address. Please ignore both.