I commend Chris Mooney for being so open-minded that he was willing to guest-author a comic on Jesus & Mo.
Comity and reconciliation
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
I commend Chris Mooney for being so open-minded that he was willing to guest-author a comic on Jesus & Mo.
That barmaid is a real troublemaker.
Well, hmmm, funny, but what pedophile priests have to do with this?
Paulino
We shouldn’t be too surprised about priests being pedos. The proto-evangelion of James (a biography of the life of the Virgin Mary) says she was visible pregnant when she was “not yet 13 summers”. That meant she could have been as young as 12 when she got knocked up. Plus last time I read the christian bible, I don’t remember Mary giving her consent to be impregnated. In fact she was told about it after the fact.
With all that in mind, should we really be surprised to find out that some of god’s followers “like” children?
Science and religion are compatible in the same way that pedophilia is compatible with morality. This last is because of the assumption that priests, belonging to the organization which advertises itself as the most moral group on Earth, are moral.
At risk of ruining the joke by explaining it, it points out the emptiness of the definition of “compatible” that the accomodationists use when they decide they need some hits and decide to bash New Atheists. They dilute the term to meaninglessness in the course of arguing that religion and science are “compatible”. Not to mention when they argue this, they ignore the fact that the people they are arguing against have never used the term “compatible” in that manner, and they continue to use it that way even after being corrected over and over again.
They could form a double act called “J-Mo”.
Of course the opposite sentiments are expressed when the No True Scotsman fallacy is brought up.
Since religion has no firm basis in reality, there’s certainly some truth in the notion that, say, the Pope can declare science to be compatible with religion, and in a real sense it (or at least the Catholic version of it) therefore is. Pedophilia presumably could be as well, but it hasn’t been, so it isn’t compatible with religion in the same sense.
A religion content to be a mere fiction without empirical traction may easily be compatible with science.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/mxaa3p
The argument is: science and religion are “compatible” because there exist people who are simultaneously religious and scientific.
This is a bogus definition. Those people could be holding conflicting viewpoints. Humans do that all the time. Just because you believe two things doesn’t mean they aren’t contradictory.
You could likewise argue that being a priest and raping little boys are compatible ideas. They both exist in the same people, don’t they? Therefore it’s acceptable to call yourself a highly moral human being while abusing children.
I really liked when, in a podcast interview (I don’t remember which podcast it was, but I think it might have been the Pseudo Scientists), you dismissed the “science and religion are compatible because some scientists are religious” argument by asking whether the BTK Killer, a Lutheran Deacon and serial killer, demonstrated that Christianity and serial murder were compatible.
It wouldn’t have to be pedophile priests. It could be any situation where someone who advocates one thing, buys into something which goes against the general principles of their first value — and yet they blithely insist that there is “no conflict” — because they’re not as bad as they might be.
Example:
A doctor who advocates a scientific approach who also promotes “Integrative Medicine” — using both science-based medicine and alternative medicine — because alt med can include things like diet, herbs, and exercise, and they, personally, think homeopathy and reiki are unscientific bunk. And, oh yeah, it’s very important that people have the freedom to choose and Western Science doesn’t have all the answers. As a general rule, though, use science. Draw a tighter line than strictly called for, in an area which scorns the idea of drawing lines, and has no rules for drawing lines — and that way you’re avoiding conflict.
You gotta love Jesus and Mo, truly one of the best web comics out there.
Whoever the author is, Thanks!
The logic is based on a false premise. There exist religious people who claim to be scientists. There are also insects that mimic leaves.
That’s going too far. The existence of psychological compartmentalisation is more parsimonious than the implication that all religious scientists are peudoscientists.
…or even pseudoscientists.
I find this question interesting because I have known a small number of fairly fundamentalist Christians who have science PhDs and whose job title is scientist. They all publish and have established reputations. However I’m sure I detect a serious difficulty with critical testing of ideas in every one of them. Rather, they tend to accumulate only the evidence that supports their hypotheses.
I’m not sure how this would pan out in a larger sample, but I’m interested in observations from other readers. I guess my point is you can get qualified and employed as a scientist without actually thinking like one. And yes, I know this is limited, anecdotal, and subjective, but I think it might go some way towards explaining why the existence of religious scientists doesn’t falsify the notion that science and religion themselves are incompatible.
Owlmirror, what’s that biblical quote? “You cannot serve God and Logic”… or something like that. I would take the opinion of a “religious” scientist with a very large grain of salt. A scientist who admits they don’t think very clearly isn’t really much of a scientist are they?
While the cartoon is funny, nevertheless—tiresome analogy: FAIL. Being a priest carries with it an explicit prohibition against having sex with children. So having sex with children is trivially incompatible with the priesthood.
Science, on the other hand, has no prohibition on believing in anything. You can have irrational (meaning held for no demonstrable reason) beliefs like animal testing is unacceptable or its exact opposite animal testing is acceptable and still be a scientist. Science only demands this: when you study the natural world, do it this way (roughly speaking the scientific method—not incessant blog writing.) If you don’t, whatever it is, it’s not science.
Doesn’t matter how many times you repeat the incompatibility canard, the fact remains that the claim it self is unscientific, because you can’t demonstrate it with an experiment. (Shall I offer my two possibilities again?—no, even I am sick of hearing them—unlike you, who never tires of being incredibly stupid on this issue.)
By this logic, Judaism and Nazism are compatible.
There have been Nazi Jews — if I remember, a particular case was the developer of “SeaMonkeys”. The guy was nutz.
Therefore, since Jewish Nazis do exist, Judaism and Nazism are compatible.
We can now disappear into our own navel — 1+1=3 and apples grow on orange trees.
===
Anyone remember the old Chappelle show episode with the blind old black man who was a major Klan leader? Unfortunately for him, he gets informed that he’s black, and divorces his white wife for being an “N* lover”.
Heddle, you need to view it in context. The whole point is that people like Chris Mooney (who is attributed as “scriptwriter” for this piece) declare “There are religious scientists, therefore religion and accomodation are compatible”. Using the same definition of compatible gets you priesthood is compatible with pedophilia.
Seeing as we godless atheists condemn that usage of “compatible”, it’s plainly obvious that nobody is arguing that priesthood and pedophilia are “compatible” in the way that you are taking it. You’re missing the whole point of the analogy. We condemn that meaning of “compatibility”, and only use these tiresome analogies because people keep using the tiresome, meaningless definition of compatible that we are calling out as useless/uninformative/obvious.
Heddle@17 Sorry I don’t buy that argument at all. Whether one believes animal testing is right or wrong is a moral judgment which is entirely subjective and has nothing to do with science.
Sorry if this has been asked before but: has the creator of Jesus & Mo ever been fatwa’d? I mean, holy FSM, if that Danish cartoonist could raise such a kerfuffle with just one unflattering depiction of the Prophet…!
Great strip. Whoever the author is, sauce be upon him. With extra Parmesan.
heddle;
I’m pretty sure scientists aren’t taken seriously by their peers if they insist on the reality of hypotheses which have been empirically disconfirmed, or for which there is insufficient evidence.
I’m not so sure that anyone holds those beliefs for no demonstrable reason. If we take one at their word that they believe animal testing is unacceptable, presumably they really do loathe animal testing on consequentialist grounds, or what have you.
Sure you can. Ask a peer-reviewed scientific journal if they’ll accept “divine revelation” in the “methods/materials” section of a proposed paper.
It’s a bad analogy.
Religion is a belief-system and the priests were classified as paedophiliac not because they believed its acceptability, but because they performed the act. If the priest kept his positive thoughts about paedophilia to himself and never perfomed the act, no problem.
Now if the comparison was a priest who was an active paedophiliac, and a meteorologist who prayed to Zeus in order to predict the weather it would work. Both run counter to the job description.
If the meteorologist merely believed that Zeus was trying to help him find a girlfriend, and observed the normal meteorological standards on the job, then there’s no problem.
The issue is what is meant by religion, and more importantly, how do the religious beliefs impact the scientist when he/she is doing science. In some cases the answer to the impact issue is: not at all.
Oh I get it, child raping old men pretending to be moral is the same level of dishonesty as delusional scientists that believe in god. Ok… yeah… good argument…
No, pjsouza, you don’t get it. You fail at comprehension. The point of the comic is to point out that these two things:
1. “Person exists who thinks both X and Y”
2. “X and Y are compatible”.
Are different claims. (They are different because human beings are capable of reconciling things in their mind that are not actually logically compatible. It’s called cognitive dissonance.) The whole point is to show how Mooney and the people who use the same dishonest argument as he is are trying to conflate those two things as identical when they’re not. You can’t prove that X and Y are compatible merely by pointing out examples of people who think both X and Y.
I’m sure you’d agree that slavery is logically incompatible with freedom. And yet we have people like Thomas Jefferson.
Get the point?
(Probably not – since it was so obvious the first time I don’t think explaining it helps if you didn’t already get it.)
I dunno, having worked with a lot of scientists I wouldn’t neccessarily say that clear thinking and good science have to go hand in hand – admission that you may be wrong in your thinking is probably a good thing in science.
I think where the problem lies is that a “religious scientist” isn’t admitting to unclear thinking, they’re just guilty of it.
“religious scientist”? An oxymoron if there was ever one. Science represents the ability and the willingness to apply the scientific method to any hypothesis – using the principles of falsifiability and parsimony. Religion (or the God Hypothesis) fails on both counts. It rots the mind. Where is the compatibility?
Presence of scientists with deep-rooted religious beliefs only exemplifies the seemingly unfathomable human capacity for a massive cognitive dissonance.
It’s not about the job; it’s about the thinking.
OT: For anybody who wants to see it, DVD and Blu-Ray rips of Creation are floating around on the usual sources…
Oh! Now I get it. By that analogy the cartoonist hoped to make the argument of philosophical (or inteletual if will) inconsistency more clear by comparing it with child abuse by a priest…
It’s not only what you say that matters, but also how you say it.
capice?
pjsouza:
As your following words clearly indicate, you do not.
That’s got nothing to do with the issue at hand; it’s the idea expressed in what one says that matters; the specific phraseology or the tone only affect its understandability or reflect one’s opinion thereof, respectively.
Capisce. You are (deliberately?) obtuse on this.
Philosophically, the incompatibility is that science says evidence and reason are paramount, while many religious people say scripture trumps evidence and reason.
In practice, Christian scientists are on a leash. They are only permitted to follow the evidence as long as their findings don’t contradict scripture or dogma. There’s no reason to discredit what they find within their limited range, but they’re missing a lot.
It is about the job – in the analogy that was made in the post to which this comment thread is attached.
Although the fact that practicing paedophilia is illegal throws things off a little further in the analogy.
As far as the Catholic Church is concerned a priest having sex with anyone violates the job contract, and so that would have been sufficient to represent an irreconcilable situation. Just as a scientist not using scientific techniques to perform a scientific job would be violating a job contract.
Anybody is capable of irrational thought, at some point, whether it is religion or self-serving wish-fulfillment or a random superstition.
The best we can demand of people is that they not allow their irrational thoughts to have a negative impact on their jobs. What they do on their own time should be their own business.
To believe that the world could ever be populated with entirely, persistently rational people is in itself irrational – or at the very least an expectation based on an acquaintance with a type of human being that I myself have never met. Where do you all hang out – Vulcan?
The lot of you absolutists need to seriously get real.
heddle #17 wrote:
Why limit the study to the natural world? Why not look at all things that are, or might be, real — and include the supernatural? A consistent scientist would be curious, and not rule out anything in advance.
nancymcclernan #32 wrote:
This is a very pragmatic description of science; reducing it to what is done, and leaving out why it’s done. Would you then agree that superstition and science are compatible, as long as the lab technicians and theorists leave it at the door, when they come to work?
I wonder how we would get them all to agree to do that — and not start getting the idea that maybe there was something to the superstition after all, maybe they should check it out and test it?
‘Comedy and Reconciliation’ would work as well.
I didn’t describe science in that call-out at all. What makes you think I did?
nancymcclernan,
A nice demolition of a straw dummy.
I don’t expect everyone to be rational, but I do expect that intelligent people could admit to being irrational when they are so, rather than to rationalise their religion or self-serving wish-fulfillment or a random superstition.
nancymcclerman #36 wrote:
The cartoon was dealing with the ambiguity in the concept of ‘reconciling’ science and religion. Does it only refer to a scientist’s religious beliefs having no impact when they do science? Or is there a wider context which gets to the heart of what it means to ‘reconcile’ two areas?
I think that what science is, is relevant to answering this question. Your responses implied that you wanted to deal with it pragmatically, because that’s what’s relevant.
How would you describe science?
They could be, I suppose, but they often are not. What are your plans to address this situation?
nancymcclernan,
I plan to post snarky comments on Pharyngula. ;)
Kausik Datta said,
It can be both, but it *should* be about the thinking.
Are you an IDiot with a 40 year old PhD in chemistry working for the discovery institute? You will probably want call yourself a scientist.
Are you an atheist skeptic with a 10 year history of debunking psuedoscience and promoting rational thinking to the masses? You’re not going to fill in ‘scientist’ as an occupation on the census, but you’re more of a scientist than the guy above.
Is that what it was dealing with? Cause what I saw was a cartoonist delivering what he considered a smack-down to the concept of religion/science reconciliability by comparing the Catholic priesthood to science and pedophilia to religion.
One strip says Mo is a body double.
You should spend more time on Vulcan. There they know how to read a comic.
nancymcclernan #42 wrote:
Yes; most people would not say that Catholicism and pedophilia are ‘reconciled’ just because some priests are pedophiles. They’d recognize that a meaningful concept of reconciliation would have to involve the theology actually supporting pedophilia.
In the same way, a meaningful reconciliation between science and religion would involve the science supporting religious claims. This is what the New Atheists are saying. Apply the scientific method, to religion.
The ‘paedophile priest’ might be considered a parody of the ‘religious scientist’ argument for the reconciliation of religion and science.
Both arguments obviously prove nothing.
Do we need to draw a Venn diagram or something?
Nancymcclernan #32,
Someone might want to mention that to the pope too.
nancymcclernan,
What you saw was a parallel construction, an argument where the form remains the same but the terms are different.
I’ve taken the liberty of transcribing the cartoon: look at [1] and [6].
That’s the point — to show the ridiculousness of that argument.
— begin transcript —-
[1] J: There may be philosophical problems in making science and religion compatible, but it is an undeniable fact that religious scientists exist.
[2] J: It’s not really open to debate: science and religion are reconciled all the time by actual living, breathing human beings.
You may not like it, but you can’t deny that it happens regularly.
[…]
[3] B: You should tell that one to the Pope.
[4] J: Why?
[5] B: He could use the same argument to reconcile priesthood with paedophilia.
[6] M: It is an undeniable fact that paedophile priests exist.
— end transcript —-
I’ve already explained why I consider it a bad analogy.
And you think that *most people* would not say that Catholicism and pedophilia are ‘reconciled…
Just curious – what would the other people say?
I thought the point of that Bertrand Russell video clip posting a few days ago was that the term “New Atheists” is a bullshit religion-friendly mainstream media appellation. Was I the only one who picked up on that?
Maybe on Vulcan. On Earth, as far as the Catholic Church is concerned a priest having sex with a child just needs a change of scene.
Really? Wow! You and I must really inhabit different ends of the spectrum! What I saw was the cartoonist ridiculing the argument of forced compatibility between diametrically opposite ideas, merely on the premises that certain individuals exist with those ideas concurrently. Mo’s point was that the same untenable argument could be used to address an equally forced compatibility between priesthood and pedophilia, merely because pedophile priests are known to exist.
You know what… Never mind. If this has to be dissected and explained, the Jesus and Mo humor is perhaps not for you.
It’s dealing with specific arguments that have been made by specific people in the last week. Look, a link!
A smack-down that deserved a call-out?
He or she is not comparing priests to science or pedophilia to religion. The point is to mock Mooney’s stupid argument–essentially the meaningless sense of “compatible” he keeps insisting on–with a parallel construction.
yeah, that’s right, you didn’t get it
Kausik, allow me to remove the redundancy: “You know what… Never mind. If this has to be dissected and explained,
the Jesus and Mohumor is perhaps not for you.”Much obliged.
Fixed.
What funniness today! How many people can’t distinguish the formal parallel construction from the gratuitous (or not so gratuitous) insult?
And yet they think themselves “clever”? Both are going on — one is the “point” of the cartoon, that a bad argument is used both in “reconciling” science and religion and “reconciling” Catholicism and pedophilia. And then there’s the insult — the simple association of Catholicism with pedophilia, because the cartoonist thinks that the RCC is an evil organization. The illogic is what drives the joke — otherwise, it’s just pedantry.
You can have both — that’s where the humor lies. You know, if you don’t have a sense of humor, you’re really not clever.
Actually, I think that the folks trying to attack the cartoon are much funnier than the original…
Sigh. Again, you people aren’t getting it, even though it was explicitly stated in text, and also what the subject of the cartoon was. The whole fucking POINT of this is that people ARE capable of being inconsistent and THEREFORE the argument that one can prove that two ideas are consistent by doing nothing more than showing that the two ideas exist in the same person’s head is a bullshit argument that does not work.
It’s not us that are making the stupid claim that everyone is consistent in their thinking. It’s really the accomodationists we’re arguing against that are making that bullshit claim, every time they try to use “a person exists who thinks X and also thinks Y” as evidence that X and Y are compatible with each other. That would only work as proof of that claim if we knew that no inconsistent human thought existed.
The reason we have to demand that religious scientists leave their religion at the door when they go to their job as a scientist, as in your post, is precisely because of the exact incompatibility we’ve been talking about here.
You’re making the mistake of misunderstanding the argument – thinking it’s about whether people can hold religion and science in their brain at the same time. No, it’s about whether or not the ideas themselves are actually compatible, not about whether or not they can be stored in the same human brain. Human brains are capable of storing incompatible thoughts in them. It’s called cognitive dissonance. We, the anti-accomodationists, are the ones that recognize this fact. It’s the accomodationists that keep using arguments that would require human brains to be coldly logically consistent in order for the arguments to be valid.
Our views are not incompatible on what we saw – but my take on it was that it failed as ridicule because it was a bad analogy.
I’ve already explained why it’s a bad analogy. But I suppose it’s more comforting to believe that I’m simply too stupid to get it.
Oh look, it’s Sven DiMilo – does this mean that I am no longer on your killfile list. What an honor.
So apparently pointing out that a cartoonist made a bad analogy means that you have no sense of humor.
Because why – because it’s funnier if it IS a bad analogy?
I guess that’s how things work on Vulcan.
Comfort has nothing to do with it; bad analogy or not, you’ve demonstrated you completely missed the fucking joke.
See? See? This:
…is fucking wrong. If you saw this, then you are wrong. You are as fucking wrong as if you had written “comparing the Catholic priesthood to religion and pedophilia to science”.
Believe whatever you want about what we think about your stupidity, but you missed the point of the joke.
Sastra,
By natural world I mean anything that registers a signal on my senses or detectors. Science is the thoroughly validated tried-and-true method for studying that which can be measured. If that “something” has a supernatural explanation (I have never seen such a phenomenon, as far as I know) then science will never determine its cause–but it will die trying, since there’s no other game in town.
Unpalatable as it is, why it is done is irrelevant. I can do science because I want to save the world–or I can do science because I want to destroy the world. You can like or dislike scientists for their motives, but the quality of their science is agnostic wrt those motives.
In even uglier terms–Jonathan Wells claimed he wanted a Ph.D. in biology to disprove evolution. Of course he never did that or even tried (using science) as far as I know–but if he had gone into a lab and performed legitimate experiments with the hope and desire that the results of those experiments disproved evolution–he would have been a hugely unlikable scientist.
That fact that science doesn’t care about the motives or believes of the practitioner is a feature, not a bug. It is not restricted to the pure of heart. It is a meritocracy.
It’s actually an excellent analogy.
There is a journalist named Chris Mooney. Mr. Mooney is of the opinion that there is no incompatibility between science and religion. As evidence for his claim he notes there are scientists who are religious, for example Francis Collins and Ken Miller. Since the same person can be religious and scientific, Mr. Mooney argues for the compatibility of science and religion.
The cartoon argues against Mr. Mooney’s supposition by pointing out there are priests who are pedophiles. By Mr. Mooney’s argument since the same person can be a priest and a pedophile, therefore being a priest and being a pedophile are compatible. Few people, probably even Mr. Mooney, would hold to this compatibility.
I think it’s a brilliant analogy.
Well, registration changed your login name, don’tcha know. Happy to put you back.
No, failing to get the joke means you have a poor sense of humour.
Fuck me, but you are an idiot. Perhaps when you’ve demonstrated you can grasp abstract humour, you’ll have a leg on which to stand on while you criticise other people for being emotionless.
nancymcclernan
The cartoon is NOT about comparing those things to each other, it’s about the form of the argument, not the items that are the placeholders in the argument. The added humor (and the insult) comes from mentioning the link between Catholic priests and pedophilia, but that’s not the actual point. The dig against Catholics is an added bonus, the actual point of the cartoon is a dig against accomodationists.
60:
Nothing wrong with the analogy at all. It’s spot on when it comes to Mooney’s reasoning about ‘framing’.
Heddle,
If by ‘senses’ you refer to your means of perception, then your self-perception (e.g. emotions and moods) is part of the natural world too by that definition.
In the cartoon, Jesus says:
Religion and science are reconciled all the time by actual living breathing human beings.
The response: the Pope could use the same argument to reconcile Priesthood with pedophilia.
But if the Pope used that argument it would be silly – because the pedophilia (or any sex really) is a direct repudiation of the vows the Priest took in order to become a Priest. It’s a broken contract. And of course it’s illegal.
It’s my understanding that scientists make no vows or contractual agreements on the subject of religion. But if anybody knows anything different, please share.
And of course the analogy is further muddied by the fact that “pedophilia” is a pretty clear-cut thing, while “religion” is not at all. I’ve heard it defined as everything from “a feeling” to a complex intertwined set of laws. Don’t you have to define what you’re talking about? Or did everybody here except me get the memo on what is meant exactly by “religion.”
I know! Let’s try it this way, Nancy:
Vishnu: Science and religion are compatible, because there are religious scientists.
Osiris: Somebody (not the Pope, obviously, in this case) could use the same argument to reconcile Evolutionary Psychology with feminism.
See? equally bad “analogy,” but the point about the insipidity of the argument is the same.
But, of course, not nearly as funny.
If anybody used the argument that A and B are compatible simply because there is a person who is A as well as B it would be silly. That’s the fucking point.
THE JOKE IS ABOUT THE VAPIDNESS OF MOONEY’S ARGUMENT. IT’S ABOUT MOONEY. THE POPE, THE PRIEST, AND THE PEDOPHILE ARE INCIDENTAL.
Keep snarking about Vulcans though, idiot.
The cartoonist is making an analogy:
religion is (not) reconcilable to science
as
priesthood is (not) reconcilable to pedophilia.
That’s an analogy. Do you seriously not see that?
OK, you seriously thought you had to explain that. What was it, exactly that led you to the conclusion that I’m a blithering idiot? Please, quote exactly what it was I said that indicated to you that I’m kind of retarded.
69:
Jesus fuckin’ wept…stay away from comics, okay? Something like Pearl Clutching 101 or Advanced Density is more your style.
Precisely. Mooney’s argument is silly. Pretty funny, isn’t it?
Not at all. We’ve had many long drawn out discussions regarding pedophilia because it is not well understood and defined differently in different academic and legal contexts.
nancymcclernan @69: #48.
heddle #62 wrote:
Presumably ‘God’ registers a signal on your senses, either directly or indirectly, or you would have no good reason to think there is such a thing.
Why couldn’t science determine that something is supernatural, or paranormal, and real? For example, consider those silly “Ghost Hunter” shows on cable tv, where people skulk around in the dark with cameras and ectoplasm measurers or whatever the heck they do (I’ve never actually watched one, but from the clips I’ve seen they seem very high-tech-y and science-y.) Imagine that this wasn’t a lot of misattribution and nonsense, but reliable, verifiable, recordable, and demonstrable. Imagine that science actually finds God.
If the whole counter to that would be that in that case ghosts, God, angels, spirits, magic healing energy, and higher realms of spiritual essences are all natural now, so science still can’t explore the supernatural, then big deal. A pyrrhic victory of words.
No, I meant that science, as a process, is done in order to understand the nature of reality in as unbiased a way as possible. The motivations of individual scientists wasn’t my point.
Of course religion can be compatible with science; it just involves religion changing its practices and definitions in order to accommodate the reality demonstrated by science – but, in doing so, it undermines any claims it might have on possessing anything resembling ‘revealed truth’.
If this weren’t the case there’d be examples of science being amended to align with religious principles – and, while I’m no historian of science, I’m fairly sure that’s never happened.
This, for one example:
Wrong, retard.
Here’s a second:
Wrong, retard.
The cartoonist is not (“IS NOT” is the opposite of “IS”) saying that religion and science are not compatible.
What he IS saying is that Mooney’s argument that science and religion ARE compatible SIMPLY because SOME scientists ARE religious is AS STUPID as the Pope saying Catholicism and paedophilia ARE compatible SIMPLY because SOME priests ARE paedophiles.
Still wrong.
The cartoonist is making this analogy:
[Arguing that that science and religion are compatible because there are religious scientists]
is like
[arguing that priesthood and pedophilia are compatible because there are pedophiliac priests]
I do think you’re being kind of dense here, but it’s also true that this discussion has a specific context of which you are apparently ignorant.
nancymcclernan:
I suspect that, like me, Margaret has read your comments.
Nancy and heddle on one thread? Ugh.
nancymcclernan (#58)
What would be a more appropriate analogy for the point the cartoonist is trying to make, then?
@ John
We obviously disagree here, so I guess I can call you obtuse as well. *TAG* You’re it!
That was precisely my point, I have a much stronger opinion on raping priests, than on religious scientists. When one brings an argument to this level it looses strength and becomes shrill.
Paulino
Any other deconstruction of the joke to me and I’ll turn this into a drinking game…
How fucking difficult is this to understand?
Scientists can subvert their otherwise rational thought processes in such a way they don’t realise they aren’t applying them to their religious beliefs – or, alternatively, they can convince themselves they are applying them to their religious beliefs even when they aren’t.
Avoidance of conflict ≠ compatibility.
I pointed out the relevant context in #5. I even pointed out the way the detractors are misreading the analogy in #19, as have several other people. The “but” clause is meaningless in that context. There is no excuse for ignorance when you have a whole thread of people pointing out the existence of that which you are ignorant about.
Sastra
Don’t think so. The best you could do is detect changes in my brain when I think about God. But you could only demonstrate that I was thinking about God.
I guess that it depends on what you mean by real. If ghosts are real in that they create signals in detectors such as CCDs, then I guess science leads us to the conclusion of their reality–that is, something real is depositing energy in my equipment. But if they are supernatural beings, science will never demonstrate it. Science will simply fail, forever, to find an explanation.
Maybe we can make the analogy using the nazis and evolution. That wouldn’t please Mooney either.
pjsouza,
I confess I’ve never given consideration to raping priests, though I’m rather appalled by rapist priests.
Religious scientists, well, that’s common. There are doctors who are smokers, too¹ — but does that make smoking compatible with good health?
—
¹ Though not as many as there once were. :)
heddle wrote:
How convenient that what you happen to believe also happens to be something that can never be measured.
Perhaps you can explain to us the precise difference between something science cannot explain because it lies outside of the reach of science and something that science cannot explain because it simply does not exist.
heddle #88 wrote:
This seems to suggest that God is a thought. But presumably it’s something else, and there are objective reasons you think it’s there — meaning, it’s not just an unaccountable whim on your part, or consciously adopted so you can have all the fun of church, or something.
At some point, “these are supernatural beings” becomes a better working hypothesis than the alternatives. Just as, in theory, God could demonstrate its existence so clearly that searching for other explanations truly would be perverse.
The problem is with mechanism and components: if it’s supernatural, it would probably be some sort of “pure mind” or mind-power (or essence and essence-force) and not really reducible to the non-mental. But the issue wasn’t whether complete understanding was possible: just enough to make it part of the working model of How Things Are.
You don’t understand what I’m saying, so you think I’m stupid. Yeah, that’s fair.
I don’t know anything about Mooney except that he apparently said that science and religion are reconciled because some scientists hold religious beliefs.
The cartoonist says that if somebody says that a and b are reconciled ANYBODY COULD ALSO ARGUE BY THE SAME REASONING that c and d are reconciled.
But the relationship between a and b is not anything close to the relationship between c and d.
And so the “reasoning” does not work, and Mooney, the Pope, Osiris or Zeus would be a fool to make such an argument.
It looks to me as though the cartoonist has set up a deliberately bad analogy and then attributed it to Mooney.
Do you see what I’m saying now?
THAT DOESN’T MATTER. The relationship for the joke is that both beliefs are held by the same person. Period. It matters not what the belief pairs are, or what they may or may not have in common. The only point of comparison is that a single person holds both ideas in their head at the same time.
No.
You’ve been clear from the beginning. And always been the same amount of wrong.
nancymcclernan (#93)
Well, that’s the whole fucking point but the way you go on, I can’t tell if you actually get it or if you happened upon it by accident.
Again, what would be a better analogy?
If the purpose of this analogy is to give Chris Mooney the vapors, I’m all for it. ‘Framing’ as practiced by Mooney and Nesbit blurs a distinction that is worth preserving between ‘accomodation’ and ‘advocacy’. I’m in favor of neutral language in scientific discourse where religion is concerned, and I don’t think scientific organizations should pander to the religious. Our task as scientists is to propose testable explanations for observable phenomena, and let the chips fall where they may.
On the other hand, if you think this analogy is actually a valid talking point against religion or any other belief system, please adjust your helmet. I am completely bored with ‘incompatibility’ arguments from people who routinely conflate their understanding of science with some metaphysical scheme. The best one can say about these stances is that they are from a certain point of view parsimonious.
They are also completely unrealistic, and unnecessary. People with all sorts of belief systems seem to be able to ‘do’ science without converting it into a form of ideology, and I don’t see how arguments to the contrary benefit the scientific enterprise.
Here’s why the relationship between a and b is nothing like the relationship between c and d.
Science = systematic approach to knowledge
Religion = systematic approach to knowledge
Priesthood = job within Religion
Pedophilia = something forbidden to Priesthood
Putting aside the issue of whether science/religion are reconcilable and priesthood/pedophilia are reconcilable – do you see why the CARTOONIST’S CLAIM that saying the first two are reconcilable is the same as saying the second two are reconcilable is wrong?
But neither Priesthood nor pedophilia are beliefs. Priests hold beliefs. And a priest may be a pedophile and believe it’s wrong – but does it anyway.
nancymcclernan,
I doubt anyone fails to see what you’re saying; we’re saying it’s silly.
Sigh. The argument is that the compatibility of two beliefs is established if someone can simultaneously have both beliefs.
(∃x:A(x) ∧ B(x) → A and B are compatible)
The relationship between those two beliefs (A and B) is irrelevant to that particular argument, because it’s not included in it.
An analogy for what? The reconcilability or lack thereof between Science and Religion?
Oy! All the shouting!
If anyone is still listening, or reading, here’s a nice poll that could use some positive Pharyngulation on behalf of our friends J&M:
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/comic-riffs/
(BTW, it seems odd that “Pharyngulation” is not in the spell check’s database.)
But Priesthood/Pedophile are not beliefs.
No, because it’s not about reconcilability or lack thereof but about the non-validity of the “simultaneously holding” argument. See the example given by John Morales about doctors.
1. They’re attributes. Is a priest not priestly, and a pedophile pedophiliac, by definition? ;)
2. Everyone holds beliefs. This is redundant.
3. No, if a priest is a pedophile, they clearly don’t believe it’s wrong — they merely believe that they believe that it’s wrong.
Actions speak louder than words, even words to oneself. All they are is in denial.
People do things they believe they shouldn’t all the time – because they find a forbidden pleasure irresitable.
Ask any dieter. Or someone trying to quit smoking. Or an alcoholic.
The scientific method is not a belief neither.
Let’s try this even the is no joke left anymore : catholic beliefs are not compatible with killing fellow human beings. But there are verses on rifles. Yeah, I know, still a bad analogy.
[OT]
Alexander tGE, there’s an open thread for that sort of comment, you know…
—
PS Thanks! I voted for “The Order of the Stick” . :)
nancymcclernan (#100)
No, an analogy for the failed argument Mooney is trying to make about how the ability for a single person to hold contrary positions makes those contrary positions compatible. An analogy that shows why Mooney’s “‘reasoning’ does not work.”
Alexander the Good Enough #101
I had problems with that poll. I’d never seen most of the webcomics. “Navy Bean” seems popular but I’ve never heard of it. There are several comics that I read and enjoy, like “The Order of the Stick”, “Schlock Mercenary” and “Sinfest.” I used to read “Pibgorn” but McEldowney seems to have lost his touch (I think the same is true of his other strip, “9 Chickweed Lane”). In the end I literally tossed a coin to decide between “Jesus and Mo” and “xkcd.” I finally voted for “xkcd.”
nancymcclernan @105,
Precisely. Now consider, does this make their behaviour compatible with their belief thereby?
Nancy:
Here’s how the analogy works, in the context of the cartoon:
Science isn’t a belief. It’s a practice. Religion in the context of the cartoonis a belief. Yes, we know it’s a practice, too, but that’s not the definition being used in the context of the cartoon.
Regardless of how paedophilia is also a psychological impulse that needn’t be acted on, paedophilia in the context of the cartoon is a practice, while Catholicism in the context of the cartoon is a belief. The joke hinges on awareness of recent scandals regarding Catholic priests and sexual abuse of children.
Now do you understand the analogy?
One of the better applications of Chad’s argument, (which Mooney says “nails it”) is this:
Compatible only means you can do both things.
Some scientists are Young Earth creationists.
Therefore, science is compatible with Young Earth creationism. QED
There’s been a couple of extended, utterly gruesome, slow-motion trainwreck threads about this over at the Intersection.
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/intersection/2010/01/11/orzel-nails-it-on-science-and-religion/
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/intersection/2010/01/19/what-should-science-organizations-say-about-religion-answer-a-lot/comment-page-5/#comment-46515
I’ve spent way too much time arguing over there lately, out of morbid and masochistic fascination with the virulent Dunning-Kruger epidemic among accommodationists.
It’s astonishing how many accommodationists simply can’t understand the concept of validity or invalidity of an argument, or refuse to admit they do if they like the conclusion. They’re also remarkably resistant to the idea that a reductio ad absurdam can prove anything. Apparently it doesn’t count if it sounds like you’re making fun of people. That’s arguing irrationally! You should be ashamed of yourself! It’s ridiculous to make such an offensive analogy!
(Orzel also dismissed crystal clear reductios as “schoolboy sniggering”—studiously ignoring the fact that they’re also strictly logical disproofs, and the fact that they’re hilarious is just a side benefit. Wow. This guy’s a physics professor?)
After hundreds and hundreds of comments arguing and explaining this in Mooney land, and many direct questions to individuals, I’ve found exactly one accommodationist who would even answer the question of whether the argument is valid. (The answer was yes.)
Jesus and Mo wept.
OK then, let’s take a look:
So some doctors smoke.
He asks: Does that make smoking compatible to good health?
The analogy is:
Some scientists are religious.
So I assume the question is:
Does that make religion compatible with good science?
*****
But:
Smoking may have bad effects on health, but not everybody who smokes is in bad health. Some people who never smoked get lung cancer, some people who smoke live to be 90 without lung cancer.
So to keep the analogy going, religion may have bad effects on science, but not everybody who is religious does bad science.
And that I think is probably the case – religion often does have a bad effect on science, starting with Galileo, – and you can say that the stronger the religion, the more likely it will have bad effects on science. But not every religious scientist does bad science.
Any problems with that?
Oh, and Nancy, the use of Priesthood here is in their capacity as representatives of Catholicism, the belief. Before you try to weasel around that.
Quite true.
And in the context of this argument, totally irrelevant.
How do you know that religion is defined as a belief and not a practice in the context of the cartoon?
The phrase “Science and Religion” is used twice and nowhere are they defined or compared or dissected.
Did you talk to the cartoonist?
No, but that’s not the point the anti-accommodationists, the accommodationists, nor the cartoon is making or refuting.
Anybody have a problem with granting Nancy part marks for being aware of the required reading? It’s not like she’s gonna pass the final anyway and office hours are nearly over.
Oh don’t worry, I’ll devote all necessary consideration of each and every facet of your argument.
Your amazing ability to read the cartoonist’s mind IN THE CONTEXT OF THE CARTOON is what fascinates me the most right now. Let’s talk about that first.
Paul W.,
You’ve earnt a lot of Brownie points thereby, or so I hear. :)
But that’s the point of the post I was discussing. Why do you have a problem with my focusing on that right now?
Yes. Being able to infer the intent of the writer of a joke from its context is called “having a sense of humour”. Do you want to talk about that?
Your actions have been noticed and appreciated throughout the linked thread.
Sastra #92,
Maybe there are no objective reasons. Maybe my belief in God is based on nothing at all. It has no bearing. Science doesn’t say I can’t have irrational beliefs. It says only that when I am engaged in science, I follow the rules. That is the only demand it makes. I don’t even have to like science to do science. I don’t even have to believe what I am doing. A researcher who thinks String Theory is bogus could, in principle, just for chuckles, be the who solves the most difficult problems of String Theory.
Not for me. I’d never conclude that a supernatural explanation is in order. If I had video tape of Jesus walking on water, and if I wanted to investigate it scientifically, the final scientific conclusion, assuming it was supernatural, would be “I don’t know” not “It’s a miracle.”
Well judging by the comments here, one must excel in name-calling, derision, obnoxiousness, obtuseness, conclusion-leaping, arrogance and conformity in order to pass the test to become part of the in-group here. And I could never hope to match any of you on those skills.
nancymcclernan (#120)
Because it looks like you’re dodging the issue of whether you understand what the cartoon is about. Now… why can’t you come up with a better analogy?
Well, I’d predate the bad-effects-of-religion-on-science thing back to Ogg the H. habilis, but otherwise no. No problem with that.
The fact that you seem to think that any of your interlocuters here might have a problem with that, however, suggests once again that you don’t understand the discussion of which this cartoon is a part.
That or you are lining up with Mooney and Orzel and those guys, who have to get it by now, because (in Mooney’s case anyway) they have been right in the center of it all along, but are (apparently) dishonestly and mendaciously pretending not to get it for some sort of strategic or political reasons or something.
Yeah, because it’s obvious you’re shifting the focus to avoid having to own up to the fact that you missed the point of the joke.
You may be fucking retarded, but we’re not and we can see right through your Gish Gallop, you fucking dishonest snizz.
The same as before so it’s not worth repeating.
As far as I know, nobody ever said that.
Let’s try another one : I know intelligent, rational people, knowing how to use statistics, etc., who, at the same time can’t help being convinced something bad is going to happen if they walk under a ladder. According to the “existing simultaneously in one person” definition, it would mean that science, or, more precisely, statistics, are compatible with superstitions.
Of course. That doesn’t mean said irrational thoughts or random superstitions are compatible with science or logic.
Nobody said that neither.
I can only do so many things at a time, and I’m being attacked by a bunch of people who apparently hate me, all at once. I don’t claim to be Bruce Lee.
I see no need to come up with an analogy – I have no point to make on the issue of science v. religion that requires an analogy at this time.
If you find the cartoonist’s analogy wanting, feel free to come up with one yourself.
Maybe my belief in God is based on nothing at all. It has no bearing. Science doesn’t say I can’t have irrational beliefs.
nor does it say whether we may judge whether those irrational beliefs, on the face of them, would be incompatible with the scientific method.
don’t know why you even include the word “science” in your missives any more, Heddle.
you’re so far away from being able to speak for it.
Aw.
Well, see ya then.
Fixed. We’re adults here, heddle.
Oh, you’ve got obtuseness down pat, fuckwit, and you were doing a pretty good job derisively name-called with your cute little ‘Vulcan’ comments.
So sit and fucking spin, you hypocritical gobshite.
Did you talk to the cartoonist?
indirectly…
that specific cartoonist does indeed know of this blog and it’s principle author.
Ichthyic,
You know this how? Do you follow me around the lab everyday, or when I am on shift during an experiment, and you can make a case that what I am doing there is not science? I’d like to hear it.
No, as usual, you’re talking out your ass, probably trying very hard not to use your quiver’s sole arrow, the charge of “projection.”
I don’t hate you. I’ll leave that to the unfortunate people who have to deal with your dishonesty on a daily basis.
Feel free to steal mine; it was meant just for you after all.
Heddle: While the cartoon is funny, nevertheless—tiresome analogy: FAIL.
nancymcclernan: It’s a bad analogy.
—
nancymcclernan:
—
Good advice, Nancy!
I had a huge argument once with some religion-defender at Echidne’s place once and he kept complaining about how nasty people were at Pharygula. I thought he was a big whiner.
Now I understand.
What a bunch of vicious little group-think fucktards so many of you are.
But come on – bring it fuckface. What’s your problem with me? I lost track – I can’t keep you all straight at this point, you are so interchangeably revolting.
grr.
it’s>its
fucking dishonest snizz.
did i miss a word?
what’s a snizz?
i like the way it sounds…
Ichthyic @140, also, principle → principal.
Who cares? :) We know what you meant.
Several people disagree with Nancy’s almost humorously humorless misinterpretation of a cartoon and that makes them “a bunch of vicious little group-think fucktards.”
Or, sorry, is it the tome that concerns you?
What a bunch of vicious little group-think fucktards so many of you are.
that’s the spirit!
nice to see you at least aren’t a pearl-clutcher.
Yes, it most certainly does. As does morality.
So, by heddle’s standards, all nonscientists are free to base their beliefs – however irrational – on any crap they can come up with. They’re not scientists, after all. No standards of reason or evidence apply.
Oh…wait. Of course that’s what he’s saying. He subscribes to the Chicago Statement. Silly me.
It was meant for me? But I just said I saw no need for an analogy. Did you read that part?
And if you meant the Krisha one – it was completely lame anyway. But I can’t go after every bad argument here – there’s just not enough time.
And there are so many of you, all reinforcing each other’s bad arguments and flinging shit at the outsider.
Seriously, I hope that some anthropology student studies group behavior on comment threads. I know I find it pretty fascinating.
You know this how?
only by what you post HERE, Heddle.
only that.
getting a clue yet?
@Svenn:
is it the tome that concerns you?
you mean tone?
:P
nancymcclernan,
Tricky, I know.
Hint: look at the label after the expression “Posted by: “.
It may help even you to keep track of who’s who.
I think you are running away because you are a big chickenshit chickenface fucktard douchenozzle scumbag shitlicking shitface. I wave my private parts at your aunties.
Come on – I can only really do any serious work on one of you at a time. I picked you Brownian.
Come on. What’s the matter McFly? Chicken?
Bock bock bock!
The concern trollette is concerned. Yawn. Boring, insipid behavior.
I think you are running away
again, I think your analysis of events leaves much to be desired.
Sorry John Morales, I already picked Brownian. You can be next after Brownian. Or you can be instead of Brownian if Brownian designates you as his/her champion. And being the chickenshit fuckwad that Brownian is, he/she has already bailed.
nancymcclernan (#129)
Any such analogy wouldn’t be appropriate since the cartoonist isn’t trying to make a point on the issue of science vs. religion, either. I want to see you come up with a substitute analogy that shows why Mooney’s “‘reasoning’ does not work.” Surely if you understand the cartoon as you’ve claimed, you would have no problem doing that.
My imagination fails to grasp how you could think I am the one who has a problem with the cartoon’s analogy when your first four words in this thread were “It’s a bad analogy.” If it’s a bad analogy and you do understand the comic, then you can come up with a better analogy. If you can’t (or “won’t”) then tell us which you’d like to take back–your opinion of the analogy or your claim you understand the comic.
(#139)
The problem is you’re apparently criticizing the cartoonist’s analogy for failing to do something it wasn’t intended to do.
Cute. You want to throw down. Sorry baby, but I don’t want any of your candy.
Simply put, I don’t like people who have to be shown why they’re wrong multiple times and then, when finally cornered, try to weasel out by claiming they’re really talking about something else. I don’t like strawmen arguments. And I don’t like whiny, petulant little shits like you who start of ribbing and insulting other people and then cry when it’s directed back at them.
That’s it? That’s the best you got? “You guys are all groupthinkers, hurr hurr”?
Yeah. Groupthinkers. You bet. Almost all of us agree that evolution is the best explanation for the history and diversity of life on Earth, that the planet is round not flat and revolves around the sun rather than the inverse, and that you’re a fucking idiot.
Voted for Girl Genius, which is pretty low down, but I can live with that. XKCD is winning at 17%. Least it’s not Jesus and Mo. That comic is awful and only can find merit based on its didactic message. It’s the Atheist equivalent of Left Behind.
No, I meant tome.
But that might have been kind of an obscure reference, I don’t know.
If so, all your questions will be answered here.
Nancy,
The point of the reductio ad absurdam is to show that the argument proves exactly nothing.
If you can put true facts in one end, and get ridiculous falsehoods out the other, it’s a useless argument for actually demonstrating anything.
If you try to salvage it by saying that you need to use a special sense of the word “compatible”—e.g., the odd sense you gave in which good health and smoking are actually compatible—that just shows that the argument is misleading at best. In some sense it might prove something, but it definitely does not prove nearly what it superficially seems to prove.
This is especially ridiculous in light of Orzel’s second argument, which builds on that one.
He claims that “science and religion are compatible” is simply a statement of fact, and that “a statement of fact cannot be unconscionable,”—i.e., no matter who says it, in what context, and how the audience will predictably (mis-)interpret it.
So going with your example, we can say, according to Orzel-logic, that
“smoking is compatible with good health”
that “smoking is compatible with good health” is a statement of fact
a statement of fact cannot be unconscionable
therefore…
a doctor flatly telling a patient that smoking is compatible with good health (with no qualifiers or explanations) is not unconscionable
And that’s precisely the kind of thing he’s advocating with respect to religion and science.
He’s saying that science organizations ought to tell people that science and religion are compatible, and that they don’t have to worry about how people will interpret that statement. If they get it wrong, and even if they systematically get it wrong—in a way that Orzel himself acknowledges is false—that’s fine.
In other words, it’s just fine if science organizations spread information in a way that will systematically lead people to believe falsehoods, as long as the statements are “true” on Chad Orzel’s preferred interpretations of terms.
His argument is amazing garbage from start to finish, and it is precisely designed to justify conveniently deceiving people while having plausible deniability because what they say is arguably “true” in some utterly non-obvious sense that no normal person would ever consider.
I am totally amazed that a science professor could say something so consistently bogus, start to finish, and which so transparently excuses intentional deception by scientific bodies, of all things.
Orzel is engaging in Dumptyism. Following H. Dumpty (as quoted by Lewis Carroll), he’s claiming that when he uses a word, it means exactly what he says it means.
But Orzel, amazingly, is even going beyond Dumptyism.
He’s not just claiming that when he uses a word, it means exactly what he says it means, he’s claiming that when other people use the word, it means exactly he says it means.
I think this novel and amazing concept clearly deserves it’s own name, so for future reference I hereby dub it the Dumpty-Orzel Thesis.
To heighten the hilarity, Orzel then claims that his hyper-Carrollian argument should not be made fun of.
Lewis Carroll understood. Chad Orzel doesn’t.
So, you aren’t as big a chickenshit as I thought.
But you lie. I was not shown wrong, and I did not weasel out of anything.
I almost liked you better as a complete chickenshit.
And to be thought as an idiot by a bunch of scared shit-flinging primates, huddling together for protection, does not bother me in the least.
I said I didn’t hate you; I didn’t say I wouldn’t rip you a new one.
Here’s another think I don’t like about you: you’re clearly unaware of your inability to read.
nancymcclernan,
Um. I know you’ve only got one face, and I hope you understand if respectfully decline your offer.
Sorry – take a number. Here you go:
1. Brownian
2. John Morales
3. Paul W
Who else wants a number?
Hey! I feel the same about you!
See, we can find common ground!
Paul W., you’re muddying the waters here with context. We wish to dissect the cartoon’s meaning and implications unencumbered by any knowledge of what it is actually about.
let’s go back to Nancy’s first real argument by analogy that religion and science are incompatible modalities:
in responding to ANOTHER analogy she said:
Smoking may have bad effects on health, but not everybody who smokes is in bad health. Some people who never smoked get lung cancer, some people who smoke live to be 90 without lung cancer.
which of course, TOTALLY MISSES THE FUCKING POINT.
the point of course being, that since she doesn’t argue that smoking has bad effects on health, then it’s obviously in conflict to be representing a healthy lifestyle while smoking.
yes, gish gallop indeed!
seriously, don’t know what you think you are accomplishing here, but whatever it is, you aren’t making a coherent argument, hence, the sharks.
But I’m not huddling. It’s just me, by myself against you and the shit-flinging mass.
Is that all you got – a failed comparison?
So Nancy was wrong again. In other news, the sun came up this morning…
Neither does she.
…damnit, Paul W beat me to it.
mine’s more succinct though.
:P
So, you aren’t as big a chickenshit as I thought.
it’s the fact that your thinking was not even wrong to begin with.
You are also flinging shit, and IIRC, you started it. Here’s a hint. You are in over your head (read wrong). And have been logically for an hour or so. You need to back off. Do so.
But you are still a huddling little chickenshit – just not quite as big as I thought. But that still leaves room for plenty big.
And the point is to demonstrate just exactly what a bunch of big brave fierce-fighting men they all are – when they got each others’ backs and it’s all of them against one.
I was not shown wrong
yes, you were.
at least 4 times by my quick count.
you seem to be suffering from selective blindness.
There is no cure that I am aware of, unfortunately.
1. Brownian
2. John Morales
3. Paul W
4. Ichthyic
Who else wants a number?
But you are still a huddling little chickenshit
again…
not.
even.
wrong.
…and it’s all of them against one.
persecution complex much?
I think I see (one) of your many problems. You see, two things don’t have to be exactly the same to be compared. In fact, if they are it makes the comparison kinda useless. (I’m sure you know what useless is. If not, find a mirror.)
You see, the salient part of the comparison is that I don’t much care about what you think of me, which is similar to your claim that you don’t care what I think of you. (Even though that’s patently false, as you clearly asked “What’s your problem with me?” in post #139. Nonetheless, I thought I’d overlook your little bit of dishonesty and act as if you meant your comment in good faith. Clearly a mistake.)
Shall I continue to teach you what words mean, or would you rather continue to trip over your own feet in an effort to show us you’re a tough little cookie too?
That’s quite the persecution complex you’ve got there… I think you should stop feeding it before it grows out of control…
ooops…
Can I have a number?
Can it be 23?
Nancy, please realize that huddling and shit-flinging evolved as adaptations in our simian ancestors for defense against dense, muddleheaded predators, and afterwards the helpless, huddling female simian ancestors would usually choose to mate with the cuddliest huddlers and most accurate shit-flingers among the patriarchical simian-ancestor males. Because (as evolutionary psychology tells us) our minds retain these hardwired ancestral adaptations, we simply cannot help ourselves. I hope you understand and aren’t taking this too personally. It’s just biology; simple stimulus and reflex response.
I guess one thing you might try is to quit with the dense, muddleheaded stimuili.
nancymcclernan (#161)
Oy, pop me to the front of the line, eh? I’ve had the same request the entire time and you’ve avoided it since I first asked it in #83 (then 95, 108, 125, and 153). Alternatively, you can answer which you’d like to take back: your opinion of the analogy or your claim you understand the comic.
Who else wants a number?
I imagine if this were a debate in a bar, you would be holding a broken bottle in a corner about now, face contorted with rage, while the rest of us are still sitting at the table with our beers in hand…
laughing at you.
Yep. *swigs brewski*
I find Nancy’s scrappy little comments are best enjoyed with some background music.
Nancy, as a personal favour to me would you please end each comment with “Adria-a-a-a-n-n-n!”?
Well Nancy definitely has a pair. Somebody buy her a drink and maybe she’ll realize it’s not the knife fight she thinks it is.
Well finally, something besides shit-flinging from you Brownian.
Things have to be reasonably similar in order to make an analogy work, especially if you are saying:
The relationship between A and B
is the same as the relationship between C and D.
You’ve heard the expression “apples and oranges” right? Do you think that’s a completely nonsensical phrase, the concept of which you find entirely invalid?
+++++++++++++
And all the rest of you – please, you will have to be content with flinging shit from the sidelines for now. Once I am done with Brownian you will get your turn to demonstrate your rhetorical superiority over me. Talk amongst yourselves for now about how stupid I am, etc.
.
But maybe you have a different understanding of how analogies work. Please share.
Holy fuck… that nancymcclernan has gone absolutely Starfart…
nancymcclernan (#182)
Good thing that’s not what the cartoonist is trying to say, then, eh?
“Entirely invalid”?
Here’s another of your many problems: an inability to think in gradients. Not all things are “entirely” one way or “entirely” another, just as suggesting that one might not simply let irrational thought modalities pass is not at all the same as “To believe that the world could ever be populated with entirely, persistently rational people is in itself irrational – or at the very least an expectation based on an acquaintance with a type of human being that I myself have never met. Where do you all hang out – Vulcan?
Is Nancy supposed to be Bruce Lee?
some background music.
i was thinking more “Eye of the Tiger”
I don’t know, but I have the feeling she moonlights at the Roller Derby.
No, she’s clearly the balloon head being kicked by Bruce Lee in Enter the Dragon.
You see, two things don’t have to be exactly the same to be compared.
is responded to with:
Things have to be reasonably similar in order to make an analogy work,
reading, FAIL.
sweet plastic jesus on my dashboard… did you actually even stop to read what brownian actually WROTE before you went off?
did you?
Once I am done with Brownian you will get your turn
just who the fuck do you think you are exactly?
Wow, Nancy really went off the rails by 139, didn’t she? Having just watched most of the three seasons of Arrested Development, the analogy that comes to my mind is that Nancy is like GOB doing his chicken dance while the rest of us, like Michael, look on in resigned disgust at the irrelevant and non-understanding idiocy.
Anyways, I tire of this travesty, and as it’s Friday night I have beer to drink and people to see.
If Nancy requires my concession before she can take on the next of all comers, I humbly and graciously proffer it.
Nancy, it was a pleasure to be beaten by the best. My hat is off to you. Best of luck in Round 2.
Which again, as you have been told numerous times, is not what the cartoonist is saying. He is saying that calling A and B compatible just because one person can do or think both is as stupid as calling C and D compatible just because one person can do or think both.
*laughs*
You haven’t met TruthMachine&trade yet.
Ichthyic (#190)
A superior knight with a mere flesh wound?
I ask you if you think the phrase is entirely invalid.
My asking you if you think something is entirely something does not mean that I think that everything is a dichotomy.
I asked you a question. Why would you leap from my asking you a question to suggesting that the question is an indication of a character flaw of mine?
I wanted to rule out if you thought it was entirely invalid. If you didn’t I wanted to find out how much you do think it’s valid – in other words, how much can something be different before it can no longer be used in a comparison.
I feel that asking someone questions is better than simply making an assumption about what they think.
Weird, I know. I guess you can chalk that up to my outsiderness.
Nancy,
LOL!!!
Just get off the computer for 5 minutes and take a breather.
OK, I decided that I will address some of you in addition to Brownian now.
But you have to begin your comment with:
Would you please address my comment Mistress Nancy?
Okeydokey?
Thanks a bunch.
nancymcclernan (#196)
So you were asking a question to settle a point that you have already been told several times over is entirely irrelevant? And I really don’t know where you get off whining about someone not answering your question when you avoided mine five times over before you started handing out numbers.
No problem, Nance old girl, just as long as you address us individually as “Your most august and magnificent highness, name (with, of course, the OM honor as appropriate).”
*raises eyebrow*
Watch it, DiMilo. :)
AFAICR I’ve seen Nancy on three threads. I generally agreed with her on the first, can’t remember about the second, and think she’s an ignorant blithering fool on this. Substance aside, she generally opens her posts with such winning phrases as “Look, people,…” David M. thought it was simple social ineptitude, but I think it’s a special kind of dramatic arrogant ebullience only theater people can muster.*
*Fortunately, Wowbagger seems completely immune.
nancymcclernansaid,
You’re about to feature prominently on mine.
[crickets chirping]
Hey, what happened to Brownian?
So much for that old Brownian motion, eh?
Har har. Physics joke.
I’m seriously confused.
It seems to me that all Nancy has done is disagree about the original analogy, and people are talking to her like she’s a YECer. Is there a history with her I’m not aware of?
Anyway, if anyone is to win this thread, my vote’s for Scott. That’s the voice of reason here.
I mean, I’m all in agreement that science and religion are incompatible. Duh. I’m just not sure what to do about that — should the practice of science be legally or otherwise restricted to atheists? Obviously not.
Are many, or most, scientists “religious”? Sure, but very, very few are religious in their practice of science. I mean, how many biologists are IDers? One, right? If religion is poisoning science, it’s been doing so very, very slowly — so slowly it’s going backwards, giving the appearance of religion shrinking in science’s glow.
When the same people are religious and scientists, doing science in a non-autocratic environment, the science seems to win out anyway, without any outside help. First, Zeus loses control of the clouds. Eventually, he loses control of love lives. But if the meteorologist went to his grave thinking otherwise, so what? Did it impact the accuracy of our forecasts?
In a related note, I’m wondering whether, in the opinion of most Pharyngulites, scientists who believe in free will are simply contradicting themselves, living in delusion? What about those who believe in qualia? As far as I’m concerned, that’s not too different from the deism-in-all-but-name of most scientists.
I do think that most “substantial” (as opposed to deistic) religious ideas overtly contradict other commonly held notions. For example, almost everyone who sincerely believes in Hell is in no position to condemn the Holocaust. (You can figure out my logic there.) But scientist-deism isn’t like that — it’s just sort of “once upon a time, God made the universe exactly as though he hadn’t made it. Later, Jesus appeared and performed miracles, but miracles don’t ever happen anymore.”
I was angling for a full-on starfart but she’s not taking the bait.
*shrug* I gotta go.
Thread summary:
Obstinate just-don’t-get-it troll just doesn’t get it. Obstinately.
If you could manage to stop yapping constantly and read, you would have noticed #192. Beer is much more interesting and enticing than you are, little yapper.
Har har. Physics joke.
again, not even wrong.
Well I mostly argue with some people here about Evolutionary Psychology. But yeah, I thought the cartoonist made an invalid analogy and attributed it to this Chris Mooney.
Based in this delightful thread, it is clear that the group rule is that you must attack all “accommodationists” and anybody with any signs of accomodationist sympathies, and there is no insult so nasty that you should not fling it at one of those scum.
I happen to know a few anthropologists, I am seriously going to get them to have a look at this thread and ask them for their thoughts on the group dynamics.
It can be kind of fun too, to play around with them once they swing into high shit-swinging gear.
I find it interesting that Nancy wants to paint herself as an “outsider”, I guess somehow feeling this gives her some kind of “lone wolf voice of reason trying to talk to the masses” status. She’s been around awhile, and even if she hadn’t commented before, this is a kind of popular place. Nancy dear, do you have any idea how many unique visitors this site gets in a day? Nobody blinks at a new name showing up, trust me. What is looked askance at is being willfully obtuse, purposely ignorant, and belligerent with nothing to back it up.
Sorry, I was still answering your first question from #139: “What’s your problem with me?”
Since that was at least the second time you’d demonstrated that problem, I thought I’d point it out. Like you asked me to.
Hint: To find posts by me, look for the ones that begin with Posted by: Brownian, OM. I know it’s already been explained to you by John Morales in comment #148, but it bears repeating because if you’d been able to comprehend his comment, you clearly wouldn’t have missed my conciliatory comment #192 in which I explained I had other shit to do and so have to leave. (I came back to grab something and stopped in to see how your fight with Clubber Lang was going.) So that means you won by default, hon! Yay for you! Yay! Yay!
Based in this delightful thread, it is clear that the group rule is that you must attack all “accommodationists” and anybody with any signs of accomodationist sympathies, and there is no insult so nasty that you should not fling it at one of those scum.
based on your lack of insight, you mean.
lenoxuss (#204)
Maybe because, despite having it explained to her a million times why the analogy is appropriate if you understand what the artist is saying, she still doesn’t get it–nor understand what the artist is saying. And, quite like a YECer, rather than face up to her inability to understand, she’s tried (fairly successfully) to drag the thread all over the place. If she disagreed about the analogy based on a correct understanding of what the artist intended to convey, that would be something else entirely.
I guess you’re up John Morales.
And the rest of you – remember what you have to say in order to receive a response.
lenoxuss of course being exempt from that particular stipulation.
I happen to know a few anthropologists, I am seriously going to get them to have a look at this thread and ask them for their thoughts on the group dynamics.
…and when they tell you instead you should be talking to a psychologist about your persecution complex, will you deign to come back and tell us?
That happens to be one of my degrees. I look forward to meeting them.
Have fun with John. Remember to read his comments before responding this time.
Best of luck, sweetie. I’ll be cheering you on from the sidelines.
Okay, that wasn’t fair of me, saying I was leaving and then sniping a few last times. (I stopped to roll a quick pinner.)
I’m sorry, Nancy. The thread is yours.
nancymcclernan,
Oooh, I’m all a-tremble! :)
Actually, if you were to respond to my #48 and my #99, I’d know you’d at least read them.
Not that you’ve responded to others who’ve made exactly the same point.
Gang, remember to address all posts to Nancy with “hey dipshit.”
Hey, I thought you left. But I appreciate that you remembered to contribute one more gratuitous insult. That’s the old Brownian I know.
Anthropologists I know: R Brian Ferguson, Maxine Margolis, Jerry Milanich, David Price, H. Russel Bernard – although the last two I know mainly through Maxine and Jerry, (and they are FB friends) and I sent a transcript of Marvin Harris’s article to him, an article from “The Nation” called “Big Bust on Morningside Heights”
I’ll ask them about you.
Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by our reaction to your stupidity.
Wait a minute, name-dropping – is Nancy really Kwok in disguise?
Hey Nancy, what do you think of Frank McCourt?
meh, anyone else can have my “place” in line.
i have no real desire to debate anything with the vacuous vituperative vainglorious bimbo.
Why are you a-tremble? Most of your team is still around. They totally have your back, ready with plenty of incredibly vicious insults as is their wont.
I found this one to be a beaut:
In response to my obviously jocular suggestion – but I guess that only cartoons with lousy analogies qualifies as humor for most of this crowd – ‘Tis Himself actually calls out to the other members of the in-group instructing them the proper group-way to address the hated interloper.
I’m just waiting to see how many follow along.
But back to you, John Morales, it’s all about you now, you big stud.
So pick a subject and let’s begin.
Yappin’ Nancy:
Oooooh, facebook! Oh my gosh, are we all supposed to clutch our pearls now? You’ve broken the lameness barrier here. *Yawns*
“hated interloper”? Nancy, you really should see someone about this paranoia thing you have going. Again, there are no interlopers here – people chime in and out all the time. And so far I’ve seen people be frustrated at your refusal to address their substantive questions, slightly amused at your rather unhinged bouts of name-calling, and generally contemptuous of your inability to make a coherent argument, but nothing even approaching hatred.
nancymcclernan:
A-tremble with anticip……………………ation!
See my #217. Look at the penultimate paragraph.
Nothing’s more absurd or pathetic than a NDITG (Name Dropping Internet Tough Guy Gal) daring all comers, like a drunken loser, on a Friday night.
It’s like watching a stumble-bum barroom drunk, who trips over his own feet and then dares the entire bar to “schtep oushide.”
Thanks for the lulz, but seriously, Get. A. Life.
It’s just the Internet.
Well, this was fun to read. Nancy should go to the endless thread and join the line for apologies. Expressions of “sorry”, plus beating of breasts are required. Line up, Nancy, and when it’s your turn, say,”I’m sorry”. Next, go to the back of the line, and start over. Repeat about fifty times. That should take care of the errors so far.
Tis Himself actually calls out to the other members of the in-group instructing them the proper group-way to address the hated
interloperpearl-clutcher.sorry, i made a mistake earlier.
you ARE a pearl-clutcher.
Social scientist namedropping? That’s about the only genre at which I could conceivably win. Eek.
:)
OK I don’t know where all these charges of name-dropping come from. I wanted to write a bio of Marvin Harris and met a bunch of people associated with him. And I never implied that since 2 of them (out of 5) are FB friends it was a big deal – but if you hate somebody, especially if the group hates that person too and you want to be a bigshot in front of the group, what better way than to invent reasons to attack?
Brownian clearly didn’t believe I knew anthropologists and I felt it necessary to mention their actual names. And really, it’s pretty unusual for someone who isn’t an anthropologist to know any anthropologists.
I certainly wasn’t doing it to name-drop – in most of the circles I travel in – technology and theatre – nobody has ever heard of any of those people.
And I certainly never intended to be a tough anything – as I said earlier I’m not Bruce Lee (clearly plenty of people don’t read my posts before commenting on my alleged character flaws) but when I am attacked by a big cohesive group with gigantic superiority complexes, well I guess I could have wimped out like that religion-loving guy at Echidne – but, sorry, I’m not a wimp.
Oh and in case you’re all worried I might spend more time here – I’m only spending so much time now because I have a nasty cold and can’t go anywhere anyway.
Sorry John Morales – I’m getting to you next.
OK I don’t know where all these charges of name-dropping come from
that would be 219, or do you fail to read your own posts as spectacularly as all others?
First – nice use of “sigh” – it’s the most concise way to express contempt for your intellectual inferior. I bet that was big win with the group.
Do you mean A and B as Religion and Science here?
Nancy, why do you think we hate you? We don’t. We pity you because you’re humorless and obtuse. We’re amused by your pugnaciousness. We’re (or at least I’m) mildly annoyed by your completely unwarranted arrogance and smugness. But hate? Don’t give yourself airs, girl. You’re not obnoxious enough to be more than a minor irritation.
First – nice use of “sigh” – it’s the most concise way to express contempt for your intellectual inferior. I bet that was big win with the group.
i really am beginning to think you need treatment for borderline schizophrenia.
Oops – somebody forgot the Rules of Addressing Nancy Unless Already in the Octagon.
What color is the sky in your world?
No, Brownian clearly thought it amusing that you thought you would get some kind of magical analysis of a random thread from anthropologists, when he also happens to be one and therefore can interpret the thread in presumably the same way they would (and has already provided his view on it).
What? So anthropologists never get to know people who aren’t also anthropologists? What? I guess you might be claiming that anthropologists are rare, but in an awfully convoluted way (and I know some too, and I’ve never thought of them as a rare species).
You are not being attacked. You are being told that you don’t understand a comic strip. Perspective, you no haz it.
On Pharyngula, it’s not odd.
Your specialness is noted.
Excellent. That’s one “sorry” down and about 49 to go.
Listen, you fuckfaced fool, you do not get to dictate how you are addressed. Get to you fucking point or fucking leave.
nancymcclernan (#231)
Maybe you should spend a few minutes considering that we might be so cohesive and superior because you’re wrong and it’s obvious to everyone who isn’t you (or lenoxuss). Isn’t that just a hair more parsimonious than the notion we all “hate” you enough to “attack” you for disagreeing (or whatever the fuck you think you’re being “attacked” for)? Are you non-wimp enough to consider that honestly?
nancymcclernan,
No.
A and B represent predicates.
They could be anything, without altering the argument’s logic.
Yep, saw that coming – from the gang who shrieked insults at me for not finding a cartoon to be a laff-riot, they never even get it when somebody is yanking their chain just to goof around.
Oh these special moments.
Nancy,
Continue if you must but know that the only thing you will accomplish is to further embarrass youself.
I know you pulled that joke a couple of times. I knew you were not fucking serious but, damn, it got less funny every time you used it. Meh. Your life must be filled with all kinds of special moments.
Because I’ve seen you all gang up on other people too. It’s just what you do.
Yappin’ Nancy:
There go the goalposts…
No one cared if you found the comic funny or not; that was most definitely not what you were moaning about while wielding weapons-grade density.
Oh dear, now the voices in her head are shrieking at her. Nancy, seriously, re-read the thread and get a grip.
Have you read some of the vicious attacks – by people who I had had no prior exchanges with on this thread? Just because the group has designated me as the target?
If this is how you talk to people you don’t hate, I would be fascinated to see what you say to people you actually hate.
When you say the relationships between those two beliefs – what beliefs are you talking about?
Nancy, I don’t think you’re servicing me very satisfactorily.
You’ve shown you’ve read #99 — even asked a question about it! What about #48?
(Hint: they’re both saying the same thing, though expressed differently; as indeed is, for example, #85 and the post it quotes, among others.)
Wow John, more contempt – you are a master of all the styles.
Yes, I am asking you questions because I’m not sure what you are saying.
Of course I know that asking questions is a sign of weakness on this thread, but at this point I am pretty interested in the many variations of “you’re stupid and boring and unwanted” comments people can make. You’d think if I’m so manifestly stupid it wouldn’t be so necessary for the constant reiteration – but maybe that’s just a group-bonding thing.
To what are you referring to with the word “beliefs”?
nancy, here’s another analogy you can complain about.
A person walks into a crowded room and declares that 1 + 1 = 2,589. The person continues to hold that view after having its falsity demonstrated by many of the people there. The person then complains that there is some sort of group think going on and everyone is against them. Then becomes enraged.
I’m sorry nancy, but wrong is still wrong.
You may have a different sense of humour, you may take offense at the analogy, but at some point, when the whole room reads the situation differently, perhaps, just for a fleeting moment, you might consider that you are in error.
Uh-oh, this feeling of being “unwanted”, is this new? Are we adding something new to the persecution complex?
Everybody wants you, nancy. At least, everybody wants you to understand Jesus & Mo humor. It’s a big push to enrich your life.
nancymcclernan (#242)
No one gives a fuck if you find it funny or not. As I said back in #153: “The problem is you’re apparently criticizing the cartoonist’s analogy for failing to do something it wasn’t intended to do.” (Or is this your way of telling us you’re just out to get us riled up by pretending you’re too stupid to understand the comic?)
(#245)
And we do it when those other people are wrong because, well, they’re wrong. Being flagrantly wrong is pretty much the best way to get all of Pharyngula “ganging up” on you. It is not in any way news that this is “what we do” since hardly a day goes by without someone referring to his or her problem with SIWOTI.
Anyways, if you’re going to reply to me out of turn, try coming up with a substitute analogy that shows why Mooney’s “‘reasoning’ does not work.” Or answer which you’d like to take back: your opinion of the analogy or your claim you understand the comic. Otherwise get back to failing to understand John Morales.
Aaawwwwww… I think snukums needs a hug. She is not evil, she is just misunderstood.
I haven’t seen any convincing arguments that the comparison of science/religion to priesthood/pedophilia is valid way to represent – or parody – the accomodationist point of view.
I’ve seen LOTS of contempt, name-calling, derision, vicious insults, deliberate twisting of words, and general group mobbing behavior though. Which in itself is certainly an education.
If viciousness was a convincing argument then certainly I would have been convinced by now.
In case you haven’t noticed, I have created a situation here in which I mostly just address one person’s argument at a time in an attempt to avoid exhaustion in addressing 15 mobbers at once. (I don’t have enough self-control to keep to that strictly alas but what control I have had has certainly helped) The arguments are still ladled with heaping helpings of contempt of course, but it’s easier to deal with one at a time.
And there is a group think going on – although that’s not unusual – it happens to most of these blogs where you have people who hang out all the time. They become the in-crowd and join together to aid those they consider a threat or an enjoyable target. Surely someone has studied this phenomenon by now – I’ll have to look it up.
nancymcclernan @249, Sigh ← Exasperation, not posturing.
Rather the opposite, in general. And I think you meant ‘this site’ rather than merely ‘this thread’.
It doesn’t matter what they are; what matters is the form of the argument, to wit: that if two beliefs/stances/positions are held concurrently by someone, the implication is that they’re compatible and thus reconcilable. This contention ignores the reality of the human capacity to compartmentalise and to double-think, and thus when applied to other, more apparently dramatic contrasting issues (e.g. priests and pedophilia) is shown to be specious.
All I’ve done there is represent the argument in an informal symbolic form.
oh, my. This doesn’t look like any fun anymore.
Nancy, O
MartyrMistress of Misunderst[wait, what was it?…whatever], please do take the advice of these several good people who don’t even really know you and log off; read a book or something instead. You should.Nancy:
You’re working with an interesting definition of vicious. Apparently, it’s not vicious nor an attack if you yell at people, call them names, accuse them of shit flinging, etc., however if people explain to you multiple times how and why you are wrong about something, it’s a hateful attack on you. Once again, you’re wrong.
Someone saying you are wrong is not vicious nor is it an attack.
Sorry, typo:
They become the in-crowd and join together to aid THE OTHERS IN THE GROUP AGAINST those they consider a threat or an enjoyable target. Surely someone has studied this phenomenon by now – I’ll have to look it up.
****
To you haters, thanks you’re giving me something to do while waiting for John to get back.
Although I sense a slight drop in the general viciousness – are you all getting tired? I mean, someone who calls themselves a mistress of foulmouth abuse certainly has a rep to live up to.
Holy crap. I hadn’t read any of this thread until just now, thinking to myself, what kind of conversation could this lowbrow artform inspire anyway? The cartoon is but a short step uphill from pantomime, after all. What might anyone possibly have to say about it?
But on this thread is a lesson that I have learned many times before. Yet each time, I have forgotten. That lesson is this:
I am always fucking wrong.
Sorry John, I know I’m going to hear about it – but I missed your post. I’m on it now.
You mentioned the word beliefs several times during your argument. There must have been a reason.
So now that you’ve delivered yourself of the pompous lecture, why don’t you tell me what you are referring to, in your argument, by the word “beliefs.”
and in the end
the love you take
is equal to the love you make
As for me, I am watching Conan and watching an internet melt down.
nancymcclernan:
“Beliefs’ refers to cognitive content held as true.
nancymcclernan (#257)
You haven’t technically addressed anyone’s argument yet because you don’t get what the argument is.
The phenomenon is that you’re wrong, everyone can see it, and several of us are masochistic enough to point it out repeatedly despite the evidence that nothing penetrates your massive shield of idiocy, egotism and hypocrisy.
Sven DiMilo – I always imagine you as looking like a Swedish Wilfred Brimley, with a big walrus moustache, ever poised to tell those kids to get off your lawn.
Don’t tell me otherwise – I like to think of you that way.
And I gotta tell you, I really do have a hard time telling the difference among the many regulars on this site, they are all so stylistically similar, but you always manage to dish out insults and contempt, in severity, and concentration per message, at a rate that exceeds the others so I actually have a much better sense of you than the others.
I compared it to LEft Behind and haven’t seen literally everyone breathing down my throat. I don’t think they really care whether or not you agree with the comic at this point.
Nancy, I don’t think you’re servicing me very satisfactorily.
“Greg, honey, is it supposed to be this soft?”
So if you happen on a retarded person, with a bunch of your friends on the street, do you all stand around in masochistic joy to watch them say stupid things?
Brownian gave up before we got anywhere, after implying that I had a personality defect for asking him a question.
That’s the level of discourse here so far. And sure, it’s all my fault. But that’s what scapegoats are for, aren’t they?
Don’t tell me otherwise – I like to think of you that way.
hmm, in addition to feelings of paranoia, do these symptoms of NPD seem familiar to you at all?
OK, let me try it this way:
And you are saying that this is the argument of Chris Mooney, right?
What do you mean by “compatibility” here?
Normally, I have the scapechimp but you seem to be auditioning for a position. Interesting, please go on.
By the way, Brownian did not give up. He had friends to meet up with. Legitimate reason as far as I am concerned.
So if you happen on a retarded person, with a bunch of your friends on the street, do you all stand around in masochistic joy to watch them say stupid things?
so, now you’re a retarded person, unable to shut up, and the rest of us are beating on you.
interesting perspective.
….to laugh at.
It’s really funny – the ONLY reason some of you hang around is simply to snipe at me.
Do you get points for the best insults? Like do you IM each other at the same time? Maybe trade tips on the insults most likely to provoke a response? I am becoming quite curious about you people as individuals – now that there are not quite so many to keep track of here.
Wait, OK, now that I have your attention, here it is; no insults, no contempt:
This is the crux of this whole sorry episode, and I sincerely implore you to read that again. That is my message to you.
OK Nancy? No bullshit here.
And you are saying that this is the argument of Chris Mooney, right?
read #157 for a detailed explanation.
meh, why bother?
you’ll not only not understand what Paul W wrote, but regurgitate strawmen of it anyway, thus furthering your floundering in this thread.
I recall how this went in in similar fashion in a different thread, you thinking somehow you were having fun “plucking strings”, when instead all the while what we actually see is you huddling in the corner with a broken beer bottle in your hand, the rest of us at the table saying: “What the fuck is her problem?”
Mistress Nancy @97
I’ve waded through the thread and can’t believe no-one else hasn’t spotted the basic premise that has caused Nancy’s confusion, even when she stated it so explicitly.
Religion != systematic approach to knowledge
Religion and knowledge are incompatible – one works with faith (the denial of reality in spite of overwhelming evidence against the supernatural and zero support for).
Religion relies on “revealed knowledge” which is not “knowledge” by definition, but may coincidentally match with reality from time to time (but never consistently or predictably). Most, if not all religions are dogma, science is pragma and provides “knowledge” of the best correlate with reality that we can discern at the time. Being pragmatic, science is continually refining our knowledge base and methods.
That’s the knowledge part. As for “systematic approach”, I guess that adding to our knowledge base by fiat (when put in the context that the same ridiculous flawed process is always used) could be termed a “systematic approach”. The same would apply to continually following a complex procedure that does nothing (like say, worship). I am not surprised that Nancy cannot see that the analogy is 100% valid, if she credits religion with either “knowledge” or what we regard as the “systematic approach” to its accumulation.
Wallace had natural selection “revealed” to him in a fever, but it came from his sub-conscious after years as a naturalist observing all the details. One lucky break does not equate with the volumes of evidence Darwin compiled over 20 years. Wallace’s “revealed knowledge” was unsupportable – there was nothing “systematic” about it and any number of fevers before or after would not necessarily lead to any other revelations that matched reality. Wallace’s subsequent occult pursuits simply confirm this – he was no more than one of those chickens dancing to a “grain god” they inferred must exist because a rain of grain once happened to coincide with the chickens’ dancing.
Religion, as humanity’s first attempt to explain the world however has lost the ability to change by imposing its orthodox dogma on adherents (and persecutes, frequently to the point of genocide, those that disagree).
Religion is not only incompatible with science, it is incompatible with reality, with reason and with the future survival of our species. As another poster pointed out, if something labeled “supernatural” is subsequently shown to exist it gets relabeled as “natural” and becomes a new subject of scientific study and scrutiny. If religion encounters something that contradicts dogma, then reality must be rejected as dogma may not. This generally requires that all evidence must be suppressed or destroyed – along with anyone that holds the knowledge and may spread it.
nancymcclernan (#271)
Wow, way to own yourself and fail at an analogy all at once.
(Sorry if this double posts.)
It’s really funny – the ONLY reason some of you hang around is simply to snipe at me.
when you insist on presenting such a juicy target, and nothing else?
I’m pretty sure I already addressed why your construction doesn’t work,
In any case, I’m still on the John Morales line. I can’t do two at once. But I think some of the others dropped out so you can be next.
But don’t you think John Morales is doing a good enough job?
nancymcclernan:
I didn’t introduce the term, I merely quoted it.
Why not address the issue at hand — the comic featured in the post, and your contention that it’s silly because “It’s a bad analogy.”
What you apparently fail to grasp is that the analogy applies to the logical form of the argument, not to its specific elements.
Have you yet perused my #48?
Look at the statements labelled 1 and 6.
Look at my response to my quotation of you.
Over 200 comments latter, you still haven’t addressed it.
—
PS, FWIW, in normal discourse, compatibility basically refers to the capability of existing or performing in harmonious or congenial combination, but of course it’s a polysemous term.
In the culture war, however, we’re using it in its sense of epistemic compatibility.
what we have here, ladies and gents, is a perfect example of the drama queen.
This is getting more pathetic by the minute. It is OK to be wrong and humorless, Nancy, but no amount of chest-puffing will make you right.
Peter,
Oh, I spotted it alright. But it’s a second-order issue, I’m trying to get her to grasp the parallel construction first.
(Though you might note I’ve alluded to it in my previous) :)
Peter McKellar (#279)
No, we understand. We also know that it’s irrelevant. Just to take one person, check out John Morales’ post at #48. He acknowledges her basic premise and tries to show her why it’s wrong. He refers her back to 48 when she makes the same error at #69.
~*~*~*~*~*~
Ichthyic (#284)
I don’t think she rates quite that high. More like a drama chambermaid trying on the queen’s finery for herself.
Those fuckers deserved every bit of it, too, coming here and bloviating bigotry or chastising us for our beliefs or who we are. We don’t ask the trolls to come, but we do welcome a squeaky chew toy when we can get one.
Honestly, I was trying to be nice, Nancy, because I’m sincerely of the opinion that you’ve been embarrassing yourself for a while here now. I actually felt kind of bad.
But–you’re no wimp; we’ve established that–if you really want my frank opinion: I thought that John might have been using too many big words for you.
I also suspected you might have been a little bit freaked out by the symbolic-logic thing.
Your poor reading-comprehensiion skills and blissful ignorance of the rudiments of critical thinking were the first things I knew of you, in some thread* months ago. Based on our previous interactions, I feared that John was probably steering too deep, too fast. My only thought here was to try a quick end-run around John’s habitually erudite presentation with a simple, straightforward repeat of something I’d already explained as clearly as I could. Sometimes that works; a student just needs to hear it twice.
*shrug*
*actually, I remember: it was the epic Baby Bear thread of yore
nancymcclernan wrote:
You think the posts addressing you have been insulting? Not even close. Trust me when I tell you that what’s been written about you so far is a gentle summer breeze compared to the obnoxious flaming shit-storms that constitute a real back-and-forth on this site.
I’m actually surprised by the restraint.
Marvin Harris refers to both religion and science as a “way of knowing” – and I think that even though religion is clearly wrong, for the most part it is systemic. A wacky system yeah, but still…
Here’s what Harris said in his introduction to “Cultural Materialism: The Struggle for a Science of Culture”
Rather more than I needed to make my point, but I just really like that passage.
Er, for clarity’s sake, that should be “he…tries to show her why it’s beside the point” or something up in #287. It’s not that her premise is wrong, it that it has nothing whatever to do with the point the cartoonist is making.
Marvin Harris refers to both religion and science as a “way of knowing” – and I think that even though religion is clearly wrong, for the most part it is systemic. A wacky system yeah, but still…
still… you failed to even bother to read the rest of what he wrote, or what ANY of us wrote on the subject, of course.
seriously, i think you are suffering from a mild form of NPD.
you might want to get that checked out.
Well we knew that “niceness” isn’t really your thing now, didn’t we?
I’m not up on mathematics. But in fact I do have an excellent vocabulary. Do you think yours is better than mine? Seriously? On what grounds?
But flinging unsupported, random, gratuitous insults at me is pretty much what you do, every time you address me. So why should this be different?
If I am so stupid why do you even bother? Is the plan here now to insult me until I go away? Clearly insulting someone said to be stupid and worthless is an activity that is greatly enjoyed by people here.
Seriously, do you point and laugh at retarded people on the street, too?
I’m actually surprised by the restraint.
It’s the growing boredom with her highness, the vapid drama queen.
like she said about herself, it’s like teasing the retarded.
Sven @289, FWIW I think you said it better than I, first at #79 and again recently. I even referred Nancy to SC quoting you on it.
I wonder if this is Morton’s Demon at work (though not in the creationist, but rather in the compatibilist sphere)?
This thread is either the most hilarious or most tedious in recent Pharyngula history. Probably both.
I mean, it’s such a huge blowup over something so stupid. If it was about something important, we would think it was a bit overwrought but reasonable. This, though, is one person making an enormous stink over the fact that they misunderstood a cartoon. I’m terrified to imagine what reading the funny pages is like in Nancy’s house.
Seriously, do you point and laugh at retarded people on the street, too?
only when they aren’t, but like to pretend they are, like you.
but what would motivate one to pretend to be retarded, one wonders…
better consult with one of your social anthropology buddies there, drama queen.
I mean, it’s such a huge blowup over something so stupid.
it seems trivial because it was presented in a cartoon, but the underlying arguments are far beyond trivial in nature, and have seen a continual shitstorm of argument over the last 3+ years online, and far before that when Gould was arguing for NOMA.
Hmm, if you think this is a serious parallel to what’s occurring here then I’m not really all that surprised you can’t grasp what’s being explained to you.
John, A.Noyd (and others), my apologies – you are correct, it is a second order item.
I just couldn’t let something so blatantly incorrect be used as a premise for her argument (hence the lengthy and hopefully thorough coverage). I won’t even attempt a rational argument because I think Nancy does understand, she just refuses to acknowledge defeat.
I like that Nancy will snark back, but I find the content becoming increasingly poor, deliberately trying to steer away from the topic at hand (eg anthropologists, group-think, blah, blah, blah) and what from almost the start appears to be an absolute refusal to acknowledge that the analogy was right on target.
No need to give me a number Mistress “These boots are made for walking” Nancy – I’m talking about you, not to you.
nancymcclernan,
Um. Why do you quote something that explicitly supports our stance?
“We must recognize that there are many ways of knowing, but we must also recognize that it is not mere ethnocentric puffery to assert that science is a way of knowing that has a uniquely transcendent value for all human beings. In the entire course of prehistory and history only one way of knowing has encouraged its practitioners to doubt their own premises and to systematically expose their own conclusions to the hostile scrutiny of nonbelievers. Granted that discrepancies between science as and ideal and science as it is practiced substantially reduce the difference between science, religion, and other modes of looking for the truth. But it is precisely as an ideal that the uniqueness of science deserves to be defended. No other way of knowing is based on a set of rules explicitly designed to transcend the prior belief systems of mutually antagonistic tribes, nations, clases and ethnic and religious communities in order to arrive at knowledge that is equally probable for any rational human mind. Those who doubt that science can do this must be made to show how some other tolerant and ecumenical alternative can do it better.”
(my bold).
That’s an anti-compatibilist stance, if I’ve ever seen one!
nancymcclernan,
Oh, dear.
“The cardinality of my lexicon exceeds yours!”
Well, at least it ain’t sexist…
Ichthyic @299:
Oh, quite; I didn’t mean to downplay the significance of the accomodationism debate: It’s one of the more pernicious anti-atheist* canards which I, sadly, expect to only crop up more and more often, as it becomes less acceptable to just hate atheists just because.
Even with that aspect in mind, Nancy’s (ongoing) tantrum is still absurd.
Not at all – I’m sorry you didn’t get that. But maybe things look different from atop the high horse.
I don’t have much training in any branch of math, but I think that English works OK.
The relationship between Science and Religion is not the same kind of relationship as that between Priesthood and Pedophilic Act
As the saying goes, apples and oranges. It’s a poor comparison.
When the cartoonist says if you argue that Science and Religion are reconcilable because a person could maintain both – are we calling them “beliefs?” – then by the same argument the Pope could say that Priesthood and Pedophilic Act are reconcilable – do you think the cartoonist is in agreement with the Pope?
Even with that aspect in mind, Nancy’s (ongoing) tantrum is still absurd.
oh, indeed i fully agree.
I tend to think she is doing this as an experiment for her class:
Drama Queens 101
Ichthyic @ 295:
Yep. She went past boring some time ago. Yappity Nan is certainly convinced she’s the dog’s bollocks when she’s actually a tiring, repetitive parrot.
As the saying goes, apples and oranges. It’s a poor comparison.
annnnnddddd…
back to square 1.
lady, go to fucking sleep.
John Morales (#302)
I never got the impression she’s an accomodationist herself. I think she just doesn’t understand the difference between criticism of Mooney’s argument for compatibility and criticism of actual attempts to reconcile science and religion. But I might have missed something.
Ichthyic, are you implying that the is a high drama professor who is giving students credit for online meltdown much like Demski gives credit to students for spouting creationist nonsense on evolution blogs. Damn but I wish I had a class like that. But we did not have the internet at that time.
@Kausik Datta 27
“Religious scientist? An oxymoron if there was ever one. Science represents the ability and the willingness to apply the scientific method to any hypothesis”
Science, yes; but scienTIST can just mean “working in a science field”.
nancymclernan at home:
“But it’s not a joke because a chicken would never let its feet touch the asphalt surface regardless of side-orientation. The joke teller obviously doesn’t know that a chicken is a domesticated fowl of the Galliformes order whereas the road is a hardened surface intended for the conveyance of vehicular traffic. Don’t you see? Walking across the road is NOT a flight system: the chicken can have beliefs but the road can not!”
Ichthyic, are you implying that the is a high drama professor who is giving students credit for online meltdown much like Demski gives credit to students for spouting creationist nonsense on evolution blogs. Damn but I wish I had a class like that. But we did not have the internet at that time.
if you ever managed to catch a series called “Mad TV”, you might recall the character that Stephanie Weir played…
she taught a class called “Drama Queens 101″.
…”where it’s all about… YOU!” was the class slogan :)
Thank you John.
I was reading Sam’s quote for the 3rd time wondering what the fuck I had missed because it so clearly supported me.
Unlike another poster above, I am not wrong ALL the time, just about 99%. Seems this was in the 1% category.
As someone familiar with Sam Harris’ work, Nancy may have read his article on “The Evil Eye” and medicine which seems applicable to the whole accommodationist debate that is the real basis for this thread. (A quick search did not yield a link, apologies)
Obligatory TvTropes* link: Don’t explain the joke.
*I take no responsibility for any hours of your life lost browsing TvTropes. Yes, it is addictive, and seemingly endless. You have been warned.
“Gratuitous”?
If you would like, Nancy, I will provide evidence of your chronic inability to read for comprehension. It’s part of the first comment I ever made that addressed you and it wouldn’t me take long to find it. Beyond that, I try to take people as they come to me. I’m sorry to say that you have come to me consistently as somebody who’s full of shit. You demonstrably don’t know what you’re talking about but you’re too narcissistic or Dunning-Krugeroid to ever listen instead.
Nothing anybody’s had to say to you here in this thread has been “gratuitous,” either. You just…don’t…get the freakin cartoon, everybody but you, Scott, and lexusxxx (or something) sees that clearly, again and again, every time you post, and tell you so, in various ways, some nice, some snarky, some patiently explaining…and yet you are either too narcissistic or dig-in stubborn or…fuck I don’t know; you’re obviously not stoopid stupid but jeez. You are consistently exasperating.
[Bride of Kw*k! It’s true!]
But you have an excellent point. Why am I spending time at this at all? In part, I guess, because I am strangely fascinated by your combination of over-the-top arrogance, belligerent brickwall stubbornness, and purest wrongitude about the whole meaning-of-the-cartoon issue.
But the addition of the paranoid persecution-victim thing really kind of sours the mix.
And I really was trying to be nice there, for a second. Sometimes it’s my thing.
Sayre’s Law: “In any dispute the intensity of feeling is inversely proportional to the value of the stakes at issue.”
(While I don’t think this “law” is absolutely true I have seen many instances of apathy over matters of great importance and vehement disputes over trivial bullshit.)
nancymcclernan:
Never watched Mad TV. But I understand the set up. I come from a large family, we all learned how to pull out the Drama Queen when we felt we needed the attention. Plus, I had a roommate who had the Trauma Du Jour.
Harris says that religion is a way of knowing.
He also says that science is a superior way of knowing.
I agree with both – and there is nothing I said anywhere that would indicate I did not
But let me get something straight:
Are you saying that the issue is not whether a scientist can be religious, but rather that SCIENCE as a way of knowing and RELIGION as a way of knowing are irreconcilable?
Because I doubt that anybody involved in science disputes that.
Unless, as I said a million years ago, there are meterorologists who are substituting prayers for satellites, etc. when predicting the weather.
The argument in favor of reconcilability as stated in the cartoon is that since a scientist can be religious, science and religion can be reconciled.
And the counter argument made in the cartoon is that if you can say that, then you can say that being a priest and being a pedophile can be reconciled.
Is that your understanding as well?
Feynmaniac wrote:
Never underestimate the power of SIWOTI. But if you just like to argue (and, let’s face it, many of us – myself included – would struggle to be found not guilty if on trial for that particular crime) then it’s not really that important what it is you’re arguing about, as long as you’re arguing.
Heck, not that far back I spent a couple of days arguing with that guy (whose name eludes me) about how atheism can’t inspire behaviour. It probably bored anyone else reading it to tears – but I was happy.
TimKO, LOL @home.
It was a random style choice – do you really think it’s worth making an issue out of?
It was a random style choice – do you really think it’s worth making an issue out of?
ROFLMAO
to hear YOU say that…
glad my irony meter broke long ago, or i might be pulling splinters out of my eye.
and on that note…
have fun, Queen Under the Mountain.
Yes!
Gah!!! You didn’t read any of those comments (to which you nevertheless seemed to respond defensively) about the CONTEXT of the freakin cartoon? About how people named Mooney and Orzel, two guys involved with science, had indeed recently and explicitly disputed that?
yes, and again, this explicit argument has been made repeatedly and recently
Yes!
Yes!
I smell breakthrough!
Wowbagger
I would dispute that, but I have to drive into town ;)
But what is being compared is a critical factor in the validity of the conclusion – are the things different or the same?
And which method of comparison are we comparing?
nancymcclernan,
He says a bit more than that — you might consider that guessing or examining entrails are also ‘ways of knowing’. He is being gentle, but his meaning is quite clear.
Yes.
I would express it slightly more rigorously¹, but yes.
—
Well, I’ve had my turn, and congratulations on grokking me, Nancy. :)
You might disagree, but at least I’m satisfied you get my drift.
—
¹ ‘if you can say that’ → ‘by the same reasoning’.
But it’s not ’17 Worst Haircuts in the Ottoman Empire’ addicting.
(see http://www.xkcd.com/609/ )
nancymcclernan,
The argument form; i.e. that if someone holds/believes/advocates/practices both X and Y, X and Y are perforce compatible and hence reconcilable. If this argument is valid, it’s valid for all X and all Y, by the rules of logic.
(BTW, those rules are that if an argument is valid and its premises are true, then the proposition being argued (the conclusion of the argument) is true. In this case, the premises are given as true (i.e. that someone both X and Y).
Since plugging in different Xs or Ys can lead to palpably false conclusions, it’s pretty clear even without formal analysis that the argument is invalid.)
The problem with religion’s ‘ways of knowing’ is that there’s no consistent means to determine which parts are actually true and which were pulled out of someone’s ass two thousand (or so) years ago to enable to owner of said ass to have an answer to a question that would cost them their job to respond ‘I don’t know’ to.
But, sadly, there are people who consider that ‘way of knowing’ to be equal to (and sometimes greater than) the knowledge gained via science.
nancymcclernan (#326)
No, the point the artist is making is that the argument itself (that x and y are compatible because one person can do/believe both) is flawed. It doesn’t really matter what you compare. The priest/pedophile analogy makes the flaw easier to recognize because of the obvious absurdity.
I’d seen that strip before – but obviously it was prior to realising there’s a scroll-over pop-up comment in each one. But that’s true, too – I’ve got Cracked in my Twitter feed and it often leads to lost time.
Just to fan the flames a little…
I used to be on the incompatibility train, then I realised that science and religion aren’t incompatible, it’s just that the findings of science pretty much obliterate any need for an appeal to the divine. They are only incompatible in the sense that putting God into the world makes no sense ;)
But if you agree that both science and religion are “ways of knowing” then:
X + ((way of knowing A) + (way of knowing B)) = reconciliation
<>
X + (forbidden act) = reconciliation
granted the above is my own primitive symbol system, so to reiterate in English:
It does not follow that if you say that two ways of knowing, when practiced by one person, means that they are reconciled, also means that a priest – an official adherent of one way of knowing – can be reconciled with pedophilia – a sex act (along with all other sex acts) forbidden to priests as part of their job description.
Although it was famously, scandalously NOT followed in practice, what was officially supposed to happen was
Priest + act of pedophilia = Not Priest
Are people here actually trying to say it should also be, officially
Scientist + religious activity = Not Scientist
?
That seems extreme.
But, sadly, there are people who consider that ‘way of knowing’ to be equal to (and sometimes greater than) the knowledge gained via science.
i believe that comes from a continued attempt in the US, at least, to teach kids that the source is at least as important as the message.
it’s how preachers and con artists have gotten such huge followings there.
and it was rather a bit of the central subject of this science paper, i have been amiss in quoting for several weeks now :)
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/316/5827/996
Scientist + religious activity = Not Scientist
strawman.
you REALLY have problems listening to what people are actually saying, don’t you.
it’s quite remarkable.
My not equal to was cut off:
Oh never mind it was an HTML thing… duh:
X + ((way of knowing A) + (way of knowing B)) = reconciliation
!=
X + (forbidden act) = reconciliation
It was presented in the form of a question, not an argument. Is there a such thing as a strawman question?
Are people here actually trying to say it should also be, officially
you wouldn’t be asking otherwise, you dishonest snizz.
nancymcclelernan (#334)
No. For fuck’s sake, you got all of it right in the last three paragraphs of #319. Your mistake is trying to take it further. You said yourself: “And the counter argument made in the cartoon is that if you can say that, then you can say that being a priest and being a pedophile can be reconciled.” Since we know we can’t say that about priests and pedophiles, we can’t say it about science and religion either. End. Of. Fucking. Story.
But hey, since you think the analogy sucks, give us an example of a better one.
nancymcclernan,
Yes, it does, and I’ve expressly made it clear why (most recently @239).
I note, parenthetically, that I don’t consider even the hypothetical first proposition to be plausible; are you seriously thinking that a scientist can propose a theory by saying “… and then, a miracle occurs!” when there’s something she can’t otherwise explain?
(I’d paste the comic, but I’ve done it too recently to merit it again).
And you know this because you can read my mind? Is that reconcilable with your scientific beliefs?
You leapt to that conclusion because you are looking for any reason to attack me. And I say this not because I claim to read your mind, but because you’ve done it consistently for the past few hours.
I’m happy to amend it to = that seems extreme and it seems unlikely that this is what people want. Because no matter how hateful the group has been here, even I don’t think you’d believe that.
But since you refuse to give me the benefit of the doubt ever, it seems likely you’ll twist this into another example of my deviltry.
Let’s face it – I will never win with you – because I’m stupid, dishonest, a snizz, perverse – well I’m sure you’ll fill in the rest.
Why you have anything to say to such a quintessence of worthless contemptibility as myself is a mystery with which, going forward, I will no longer concern myself.
Have an nice life.
Well Jesus let’s all say a big “GET WELL SOON NANCY!!” and then maybe she’ll fuck off out of it!
nancymcclernan (#343)
Then why did you ask if we did?
And what’s a better analogy?
nancymcclernan:
That’s incoherent, you’ve already said scientist in the first term in that expression.
It’s also a strawman of our position..
Why? Well, I’ll just quote Heddle, who is both a scientist and a devout believer: “Science doesn’t say I can’t have irrational beliefs. It says only that when I am engaged in science, I follow the rules. That is the only demand it makes.”
I’ve seen the cartoon. It’s a classic.
No I’m not thinking that – did you read the part were I mentioned a meteorologist? Did you see how the situation I described conveys what I consider the possible, workable fit between science and religion?
And, BTW – would I call (what I consider) a possible workable fit reconciliation, or something else?
We do agree that a scientist who practices religion is in a very different situation from a priest who practices pedophilia – yes?
According to the numbering system on my page the bit above is #239.
Although it was fun to read that again. Ah these precious memories. I will cherish them always.
In any case, could you just find whatever you made manifest and paste it in your response so there’s no doubt what it is?
It does not follow follow formal rules, I freely admitted it was idiosyncratic.
But you must understand what I was trying to say, which is what matters to me, since you’ve determined that it was a strawman position.
And as I explained elsewhere – I asked it in the form of a question. I did not say I thought that was the position.
Do you agree with this? Because what I said at #32 was:
Seems to be pretty similar.
nancymcclernan (#347)
It doesn’t fucking matter. What matters is that both exist but their existence doesn’t have any meaning when you try to reconcile science with religion or pedophilia with being a priest. Mooney is making the argument that a scientist who practices religion means science and religion can be reconciled. The comic is saying his argument (which is not, in this case, that science and religion can or can’t be reconciled) is wrong.
If you still don’t agree that the analogy works to illustrate this, then give us a better analogy.
I’ll try…
Someone is arguing that (A) and (B) are compatible, because it’s possible to be (A) and (B) at the same time.
Someone else is saying that that’s not a good argument, because someone can be (C) and (D) at the same time, and those things are not generally regarded as being compatible.
They are not saying that (A) and (B) are compatible.
They are not saying that (A) and (B) are incompatible.
They are not saying that (A) is to (B) as (C) is to (D).
They are saying that the argument that (A) is compatible with (B) is just as spurious as the argument that (C) is compatible with (D).
There’s the joke, in summary, generalized form.
Questions?
nancymcclernan,
Yes.
I note that Sastra has already addressed that @34, as has BdN @128.
Why is it so important to you that I fuck off out of it?
You don’t have to read what I write, or respond to it. If you think I’m deranged then surely you should feel compassion – or at least indifference to my presumed ravings.
Am I preventing anybody from talking about anything else on this thread? Am I stopping anybody from spending their time elsewhere on Pharyngula?
What is it about me that inspires so much vehemence and such a desire to – I guess drive me away is what you mean by fuck off?
Why am I, a… let’s see, what were some of the suggestions? Stupid, schizophrenic, deranged, bad vocabulary, dishonest retard – of any consequence to your life whatsoever, because I am arguing with John Morales on the issue of whether or not a cartoonist made a valid analogy?
My impression was that it was the general view here that retards such as myself should be laughed at, not taken seriously. If I’m such a source of good sport, why would you want to drive me away? And seems to me that many people derived a real sense of pleasure by abusing me. Do you want to deprive them of one of the joys in their lives?
So you could go away and get that sweet relief from my existence, and the people who derive pleasure from abusing me would still get what they want. Doesn’t that sound like the best solution?
Yeah, I stuffed up by transposing digits whilst typing and not previewing; I meant to refer to 329 not 239.
nancymcclernan (#352)
Your inability to understand that you’re wrong, much less why you’re wrong, even after a dozen or more people have explained it to you.
Can you lay off the strawman arguments for a few minutes and give me an analogy that makes the artist’s point better than a pedophile priest? If you really do understand the artist’s point, this shouldn’t be hard at all. And if you can’t manage that, just take back either your opinion of the analogy or your claim you understand the comic.
Only a wimp would avoid my request an eighth (ninth?) time.
But what Sastra said was beside the point.
Although what I said was similar to Heddle, there was an important difference – Heddle talks about what Science “asks” – I was talking about what society can expect from scientists. And so contrary to what Sastra claimed, I wasn’t describing science.
Well, it’s 3:15 am here in NYC so it looks as though I myself will have to deprive people of a stupid, retarded, schizophrenic, dishonest etc. etc. etc. target on which to heap abuse for the thoughtcrime of arguing against an analogy.
Sorry, but I do have a cold.
With any luck I’ll return tomorrow for more entirely reasonable, not at all excessive or vicious, well-deserved abuse.
Sven De Milo (#315) wrote:
You just…don’t…get the freakin cartoon, everybody but you, Scott, and lexusxxx (or something) sees that clearly, again and again, every time you post…
Hey! Leave me out of this. Just because I am personally unpersuaded by the ‘incompatibilist’ position, doesn’t mean that I don’t understand the point of the cartoon’s analogy or that I’m sympathetic to ‘framing’. I said as much in my original post (#96)
As for the obdurate Nancy, well, she seems unaware of the history of Nisbet and Mooney’s ‘framing’ business, and is probably more interested in getting attention than anything else. I mean, seriously, 300-odd posts here and most of it is based on a misunderstanding of an analogy in a gag strip? It can’t be the substance of the ‘argument’ that’s led to such a protracted donnybrook. It’s got to be something else.
Good night all…Scott Hatfield, OM
I can’t believe it took 350 comments to sort out that Nancy is right that if the two arguments in the comic are combined it doesn’t work because it obviously constitutes some sort of fallacy of illicit process( lots of “some” in those premises !), and that on the other hand Nancy has it wrong in that the two arguments made are not meant to work together in the first place, since the analogy is only made to point out Mooney’s error of argumentation, which I reckon it does quite brilliantly !
Wow ! So much happened since I was gone out drinking a few beers myself !
Well, I don’t think this would convince nancymcclernan since it is exactly why she thinks it is a bad analogy and what she’s been complaining about : “because someone can be (C) and (D) at the same time”. She’s saying that someone here is not C and D because when he begins to DO (and not “be”) D, he is not a C anymore so, of course, he is not C and D at the same time. Sorry for repeating, I know everybody got that already, just trying to get my thoughts together. If we push it a little further, that’s why I wrote that my analogy about being a good Christian while having verses from the Bible written on the rifle with which I shoot people : I am not a Christian at the exact moment I kill someone. Of course, I can get forgiveness and be a True Christian again. Of course, this kind of reasoning could also apply to the science/religion : the scientist is not being religious at the exact moment he performs an experiment (otherwise it is not science) but gets back to being religious when his shifts ends. And this only shows it IS incompatible since you cannot be both (or perform both, or be one and perform the other, etc.) at the same exact moment. That’s why I gave the analogy of a statistician being superstitious : it’s not about performing, being, profession, etc. It’s a clear example of science/irrational belief.
But all of this IS irrelevant. Here it’s worth repeating what John Morales wrote at #329: “The argument form; i.e. that if someone holds/believes/advocates/practices both X and Y, X and Y are perforce compatible and hence reconcilable. If this argument is valid, it’s valid for all X and all Y, by the rules of logic.”
Too much has been made about the analogy being good or bad or whatever. It doesn’t matter. It’s not about the analogy. You could put any X and Y in there. Eating chips and hunting. Being ugly and having a refrigerator. Believing in unicorns and collecting doorknobs. If those don’t show that these things are incompatible and don’t invalidate the argument, they indicate that using the presence of two things in one person to claim they are compatible means you are using a very, very weak definition of “compatible”. And your argument is so weak that it is useless.
BTW, I’m a graduate student in anthropology (but the worst kind of it) and, of course, 3/4 of my friends are anthropologists (many of the good ones). How many internets do I get ?
Scott @ 356,
Scott, i don’t think she has been obdurate on this thread, unaware of the whole accomodationist rubbish, more likely, and coming into this after the fact I can see how people have been talking past each other for 350 posts.
Given her track record and very sporadic appearances here I doubt that very much.
Rorschach:
Actually, this was obvious yesterday. What we have with this thread is a case of
PZ: Urgent….stop….we’re dying here…stop….send new post….stop….immediately…stop….before cannibalism sets in…stop…else….stop….post recipes…stop…for long pork…stop.
What was it, exactly that led you to the conclusion that I’m a blithering idiot? – nancymcclernan
All the comments you made on this thread up to that point, when I stopped reading your contributions. Up to now, while it’s been obvious you had a fairly substantial stick up your arse, I have thought you have made some useful contributions to the debates around EP.
wow. Just… wow.
Missing the point, (such an obvious one too) so completely… and steadfastly. Refusing to see the point even when it’s been branded onto a 2×4 which you’ve then been bludgeoned with… thats…
…damn, I think that’s quite possibly an art form. I mean, there’s almost a sort of perverse beauty to it. A symmetry, a kind of perfection. Not the opposite of perfection despite being wrong, not absolutely flawed, but more like perfection turned inside-out. So you can squint and see the print through it but it’s all alternate-universed somehow.
I think my mind has actually been blown, here. And it’s not just my insomnia.
jafafahots (#362)
Maybe we need to make a new place on the scale of wrongness just for her. There could be “wrong,” “completely wrong,” “not even wrong,” and then “nancymcclernan.”
There does seem to be something about accommodationism that leads some people to suffer a major cognitive malfunction.
Mooney is one such person. He simply cannot seem to grasp that accommodationism not simply about someone being a scientist and being religious. Nancy is clearly another such person. If we ignore the unpleasant idea that she is being dishonest, then we are left with the conclusion she simply cannot grasp the concept. Her brain does not seem to be able to do the required cognition to “get it”.
I’ve just read the whole thread from the point I went to bed last night to Knockgoats’ last comment. Some thoughts:
* Congratulations to the Australian contingent for showing SIWOTI syndrome is alive and well in Oz.
* Ichthyic may well be right in his internet diagnosis of Nancy as having NDP. Her insistence that we all hated her because…well…because we all hated her despite assurances that we didn’t is a classic symptom of NDP.
* I remember a thread a few months ago where Nancy accused Richard Dawkins of misogyny and continued to do so even after Dawkins explained that she was misinterpreting something he’d written. There was another thread last summer sometime when Nancy got into an argument with someone about race and gender. She does seem to relish being combative.
* Nancy was a tone troll simultaneously with being a shit flinger. Several people commented on this apparent contradiction but that didn’t stop her from continuing to fling shit or playing martyr.
* The concept that if a group of people disagree with you then perhaps you’re mistaken never occurred to Nancy. This is another symptom of NPD.
This thread is one of the stranger yet intriguing ones we’ve had recently. It is one I’ll come back and reread in a week or two.
If you’re talking about the “Baby Bear’s Lament” thread, you’re misrepresenting it.
I love these threads.
Recognizing that two ideas are incompatible requires thinking about two ideas at the same time – and thinking about how they interact. It’s a moderately difficult task. But more importantly – if you have 4 ideas, and you want to check them all for pairwise compatibility, you need 6 comparisons. If you have 5 ideas, you need 15. For 6 ideas you need 21. For n ideas you need n(n + 1)/2 . I hope you can see where this is going. Even a dog needs more than 6 ideas to get through its day.
Functioning humans – even if they are quite stupid by reasonable standards – necessarily have far more ideas than can be subjected to such brute force pairwise comparisons. There are all sorts of short cuts – groupings of similar ideas, hierarchies, and so forth. But finding and removing incompatibilities from one’s thinking is necessarily hard work. And most people have plenty of other work to do – so they don’t look for incompatibilities as a matter of course. Finding incompatibilities in one’s thinking is an important part of being a scientist – but not the only part, some scientists are not good at it, and some simply don’t do much of it outside their area of research.
It is admirable, of course, that so many here do look for and remove incompatibilities in their thinking as a matter of course. But in some ways (both good and bad), the conversation here is akin to a conversation amongst a group of dedicated runners, who are so caught up in the world of running, that they are shocked and horrified to learn there are people who don’t run. And no runner does every kind of running, just like no-one finds every incompatibility in their thinking.
(Of course, some religious scientists are really atheists using religion as protective coloration. That’s another issue.)
SC OM #366
That may well be. I didn’t go back to look, I was going on what I remember.
Damn it, Nancy slid back.
Bullshit, Rorschach. The actual meaning of the cartoon was explained clearly and calmly and not-so-calmly to her, multiple times, as was the context of the cartoon, with links. Her choice to plow on ahead with her stupid me-against-the-horde wrongness = “obdurate” cubed.
Scott, sorry to have lumped you in unfairly with Those who Just Don’t Get It. I guess I was reacting to your 2nd and 3rd paragraphs (@#96) which are apparently aimed at those who don’t get it. Or, wait…no, they’re aimed at
Well so there it is. All of these recent compatibility [I almost hesitate to call them] arguments are boiling down to the most important or appropriate meaning of the word “compatible” in this context.
The position taken by Mooney, Orzel, Scott (btw I didn’t realize which Scott…registration has scrambled many a trusty username) and (what started the whole thing) the NAS and NCSE seems to be that the epistomological (hence ‘formal’) meaning is unimportant.
Mooney has simply (and ludicrously) been pretending that the formal meaning doesn’t exist for literally years now. The recent dustup, though, results from a slight shift from denial to trivialization. Orzel condescendingly sneers at all philosophy of science with the deeply stupid Zeno’a Paradox comparison (and I say that as no friend, in general, of philostophy); Mooney waves off the formal meaning as–what was it?–“some grand philosophical way” of defining ‘compatibility.’
Scott takes a slightly different tack. Instead of simply asserting that the trivial definition of ‘compatible’ is the only important one, he wishes to justify that conclusion by moving the semantic-definition game over to the word ‘science.’ The problem with the compatibility-denial argument, Scott suggests, is that it mistakenly views ‘science’ as “some metaphysical scheme.”
I guess I should ask Scott exactly what he thinks science is instead (so here: I’m asking), but presumably he (and heddle, who thinks similarly on this issue) sees it as a toolbox rather than a worldview. You open up your toolbox and do science when that’s what you’re doing and when it’s approprite, and then when you’re done you close it up and approach life with some other “way(s) of knowing.”
And if that’s what science is to you, then of course you’ll prefer to de-emphasize the formal sense of ‘compatible’. It doesn’t matter to you. And Scott, as a committed Christian science teacher, and heddle, and Collins and other scientist/theists are of course going to espouse this point of view, NOMA basically, because it is the mechanism by which they avoid cognitive dissonance.
The anti-accomodationists feel differently. They see science as the only “way of knowing” with any reliability. A worldview, even. Basic principles of intellectual honesty and consistency undergird their contention of the fundamental importance of epistomologic incompatibility.
Who knows about Orzel and Mooney. In the latter case it all seems to be an essentially cynical tactical decision. What’s not really clear is what his goal is: a more scientific America, better science education, shameless self-promotion, or a nicer, pleasanter, whiter-toothed blogosphere.
Nancy seems to be in the running for a Dunning-Kruger on analogies.
Her imagined expertise is keeping her from understanding the analogy from those who might actually give her a clue.
(The incompetent people are too incompetent to realize they are the incompetent people.)
Is it my turn yet? Is John gone or done?
People keep cutting in line!
Paul,
Due to the reshuffling of numbers you are now #143.
Now serving #8.
Whew. This thread gave me more than an hour of sick, masochistic pleasure, and I really don’t know if I’m ever going to be able to pull up my jaw again. SIWOTI? Not at all.
Someone is not even not even (sic) wrong on the Internet. That’s SINENEWOTI for ya. Fractal fail.
Epic.
It’s really quite simple. There are some people who believe that religion and science are compatible. These people are clearly deluded and stupid and wrong. Their belief that religion and science are compatible is just another example of their stupid and wrong delusion.
The jesus and mo cartoon doesn’t address this. As John Morales has explained repeatedly, it addresses the secondary consequence of the delusion; thinking that believing that science and religion are compatible somehow makes science and religion compatible. It uses a reductio ad absurdum by giving an analogy between that belief and people who believe that priesthood and buggering kids are compatible.
All nanvy seems to be is another apologist for raping kids. How dare we speak out for the victims of rape.
For the record: when I read it, I thought the cartoon was hilarious, even though I wasn’t sure I agreed with it or not. Mo’s comment is excellent. “Was” is the key word here — the whole thing’s kind of been killed at this point.
So… is NWOTI? Yes, NHBWOTI, and perhaps N continues TBWOTI.
I’m just not the sort of person who can give a crap about Wrongness in that abstract sense, to the point of verbal blows. I have (some) difficulty seeing how others do, just as I have (some) difficulty seeing how scientists reconcile their religious and epistemic beliefs.
I guess I’m just a pragmatist in all that. To me, religion is wrong morally more than it is wrong intellectually, and the reason I want to slowly drain religion out of the world is moral, not intellectual.
In a strange way, I see the existence of religious scientists as an excellent trend towards an ultimately non-religious world, because, as I said earlier, if the environment is conducive to free thought, the science always wins. People will say “Hey, that evolutionist is still a Catholic”, then become evolutionists, then secular Catholics, then agnostics, then atheists. That’s my dream.
I never intended to defend Nancy as not being Wrong — only that I don’t think Wrongness needs to be addressed with hostility. Like, ever. No matter how obdurate the other person is being, one should demonstrate unreasonable, super-powered, zen-like patience, and, if necessary, end the conversation. That’s just how I’m wired.
I think we have a good answer to the age-old question, “Is the notion that science and religion are incompatible compatible with the notion that science and religion are compatible?” ;)
eddie,
Wow. Thank you for simplifying the discussion just, just so. I don’t think I have ever read the the argument expressed as cogently as this. Brilliant. I am in awe.
One question: do we have poopy pants too?
Some scientists read horoscopes; therefore (per Mooney’s reasoning) astrology and science are compatible.
Is that a little easier analogy to understand, Nancy? It’s the reasoning accommodationists use to claim “compatibility” between two disparate fields that is problematic. They pretend that we don’t know that scientists can be religious. We DO know… just like we know priests can be pedophiles. We’d just never use such a loose definition of “compatible”.
By that reasoning science can be said to be “compatible with” most every superstition and pseudoscience.
That is not the argument and I think you know it. The argument is not simply “Some scientists are religious therefore science and religion are compatible.” It is more like this:
1) Some priests are pedophiles, therefore it is possible that being a priest is compatible with being a pedophile.
2) HOWEVER–it is trivial to demonstrate that the requirements for priesthood preclude compatibility with being a pedophile.
vs.
1) Some scientists are religious, therefore it is possible that science and religion are compatible
2) HOWEVER— however… this is no however. There is only Jerry Coyne et. al asserting an incompatibility, like old eddie in #374.
The rules of the priesthood make it impossible to be a priest and a pedophile without breaking those rules.
There are no rules in science that are violated when you are religious. Or when you are a pedophile. Or a communist. Or a libertarian. Or vote Republican. Or when you believe animal testing is acceptable. Or when you believe it isn’t.
Once again the rules of science are simpler, much much simpler that the rules for being a priest. The rules are: when you study the natural world you follow the scientific method.
Get it? In one case rules are violated, and in the other they are not. Therefore the analogy, though funny, is bad.
Note: I wrote this to be sent immediate after my last comment. Indubitably, there have been many comments in between; I have not read them.
I am now, and always have been, an anti-accomodationist, but only philosophically. I don’t see how anti-accomodationism can go beyond philosophy, really — should Ken Miller be fired or something?
There is science the toolbox and science the metaphysical scheme. The first is “compatible” with airy-fairy-not-quite-there-y religion, the second isn’t compatible with religion at all. I suppose a more sophisticated conversation would be on the question of whether scientists “ought” to hold a scientific philosophy, not just methodology. But then, how is that different from the question of whether everyone ought to hold a scientific methodology? After all, we all live in the same world, and it is ostensibly a rational, god-free, scientific one.
I just noticed the term “tone troll” earlier and realized I accidentally confessed to being one. Whoops, sorry! What I meant was, let that horrible person Nancy have it.
Only some of you, Heddle. It’s an issue of dogma.
So, I just realised my roommate also has an anthropology degree, though neither of us went to Stuyvesant. Nobody tell Nancy, please; seeing a silverback gorilla in the wild is a rare and amazing experience, and if Nancy thinks anthropologist sightings are like that then who are we to take it away from her?
Unless, of course, it’s god that’s telling you to kill those people, presumably. Or, someone who’s been told by god to order you to kill those people. Or merely someone who’s been inspired by the word of god to go and kill people.
Then you’re ok from a Christian standpoint.
Yes?
heddle sez:
So, when a priest breaks those rules, he’s no longer a priest? He loses, at that moment, his priestly powers?
Because if not, than he is being both at the same time, which is the (poor) definition of ‘compatible’ used in the cartoon, which is the point of the joke.
Also, I’d ask after a point of clarification here – are we talking about priests being pedophiles (desiring to have sex with children), or being child molesters (actually doing so)?
I understand that in common parlance the two are interchangeable, and that in Christianity they are equivalent, but legally and morally speaking, from a humanist standpoint, they are massively different.
In short, I’d like to know what’s being argued here – are we arguing over something that someone does that stops them from being a priest?
Or just stops them from being a good priest?
gah! It loses your draft comment when it times you out?! Fuck!
OK, more briefly:
The cartoon has a point and a joke. They are not the same. The priestly pedophilia is part of the joke, not part of the point.
Alternate version for heddle: substitute “guy from McKeesport” for “priest” and “Browns fan” for “pedophile (also make any necessary grammatical adjustments).
The joke is different.
The point is the same. The point about the Orzel/Mooney argument.
I realize, heddle, that you agree strongly with the original Orzel/Mooney argument, as you must to carry your religious baggage through your scientific life (and your scientific toolbox through your religious life), but please don’t defend the trivial sense as the only relevant meaning of compatibility here.
We acknowledge that you exist. We are talking about something else. Do you join Orzel and Mooney in flippantly dismissing the something else as unimportant?
IIRC, Pigmy Loris is an anthropologist. I think I’m missing another regular too.
Oh, what’s with all these people saying that the moment a man has sex with a child, he is automatically no longer a priest? That’s, um, not true. The outrage over the whole thing was that the Church did not bar and turn in priests the instant they were known to be pedophiles, but instead shuffled them around. Ergo, pedophilia obviously is compatible with Catholicism, despite whatever church officials said; actions speak louder than words.
(Whereas there is no equivalent hierarchy for science, so the science-vs-religion debates have a totally different flavor; that doesn’t mean accomodationism is right, just that there’s no 1-for-1 equivalency).
Okay, maybe as with science as toolbox-versus-philosophy, one could draw the distinction between Catholicism as institution-versus-philosophy. Pedophilia is indeed incompatible with the philosophy of Catholicism, but quite compatible with the institution.
I think it is to some extent reasonable for someone to fallaciously interpret the cartoon as equating pedophilia with religion — in the same way it is reasonable to be fooled by an optical illusion. Humans aren’t perfect interpreters of language. And while I think the cartoon is funny, its message is maybe a little off.
BUT IT’S STILL FUNNY. DAMMIT.
heddle @376 shows a deep level of ignorance in equating mental and physical disability. Does he think that victims of cerebral palsy are somehow stupid also.
No. Of course, he believes they are sinful and being rightly punished by a just and loving god.
Fuck you, heddle.
But science doesn’t address what scientists “ought” to do when they aren’t doing science. If it did, maybe blogging would be high on the list of what we ought not do.
I don’t know what “science the metaphysical scheme” means–but if you want to say “science the metaphysical scheme” is incompatible with religion I won’t argue–because I don’t give a rat’s ass about “science the metaphysical scheme” (whatever that is). I only know and love science: the systematic knowledge of the physical world gained through observation and experimentation.
I agree with you. I was just pointing out that for the True Christians (the kind that says that if you did such and such, you were not really a Christian and stuff), it wouldn’t count. Of course, if it is a direct order from God through his earthly ambassadors, than, the analogy stands.
nancymcclernan was talking about child molesters, repeatedly mentioning that it was an action that automatically broke the contract.
lenoxuss (#375)
Up in 212 you said “It seems to me that all Nancy has done is disagree about the original analogy…” Even if you don’t care to partake in the futility of correcting her, do you see now that the problem isn’t that she disagrees but that she disagrees based on a mistaken understanding of the artist’s message and will not accept she’s missing the point? (If you don’t understand, try reading Anri’s breakdown of the issue in #350.)
On what basis is religion morally wrong? Is it that particular articles of faith explicitly encourage immorality? Or because it rests on a flawed epistemological foundation? Or something else? For me, intellectual wrongness leads to the moral wrongs, be it in religion or medicine or politics. Any system of belief that tries to ignore the fact that science works where all other “ways of knowing” fail leads to abuse.
Well, I’m wired to be combative and hostile. I also respond to it better than zen-like patience which I find exceedingly patronizing. So you can have your approach and I can have mine. Yours isn’t better just because you prefer it. It’s certainly better for arguing with some people, but as far as I’m concerned, nancymcclernan signalled that she was game for the combative approach with her attitude in #32 where she ended her post with a strawman argument, an attempted insult, and a scolding for a belief no one expressed. Even then, the corrections were fairly mild with no more snark than we direct at people we respect till Kausik Datta very understandably lost his patience at #51. People around here are really pretty good at reigning in the vitriol if the other person’s approach isn’t belligerent from the start.
~*~*~*~*~*~*
heddle (#378)
Wrong. A priest can be a pedophile by having sexual desire for children and not act on that desire, therefore never bringing his pedophilia into conflict with the rules. Not raping children doesn’t make him not a pedophile because pedophilia is a desire as well as a behavior. (Oh noes, I’m doing the echo chamber thing with Anri!)
Damn! I should sleep more after a night in town… Sorry for all the mistakes…
Wrong Heddle.
I don’t agree with anything you said. I prefer that people get my opinion from me rather than your garbled paraphrasing of what you think I said and what you think I mean. (Though, thanks for pulling me into the fray –I do find it a pleasurable diversion.)
Your brain misses the obvious again and again just like nancy so you can pretend that your favorite superstition is more rational than the superstitions you find laughable.
Moreover, you are confusing beliefs and facts. Being a priest and a pedophile is not impossible as you assert. How do I know? Because some priests ARE pedophiles. Q.E.D. And claiming to have knowledge of the supernatural (which is what theism is) is, at it’s core, anti-scientific (not to mention arrogant). Science doesn’t make claims of divine knowledge.
If (as you accommodationists assert) a single person engaging in more than one human endeavor means that those practices are by definition “compatible” … then science is compatible with all crazy beliefs that any scientist holds– including astrology, exorcisms, Scientology, witchcraft, rain dancing, and reincarnation. You can’t separate your brand of superstition from those using Mooney’s definition of what is and isn’t compatible. Heck, even young earth creationism is compatible by that reasoning, since god made the earth look old. It’s ALL compatible if the only thing you mean by compatible is that a person can practice both!
I’m not sure, but I bet Gyeong Hwa Pak, the Pikachu of Anthropology knows one or two.
Haven’t you heard? Christians aren’t perfect, only forgiven. It’s a relief to know that the world is full of assholes doing assholey things, but God’s only gonna punish some of them for it.
Jeez, took me forever to read the rest of the thread — I had to leave last night, and there were obviously plenty who didn’t.
Here is something to consider: can someone be an excellent priest — proficient and efficient in all his duties, careful and prompt and eloquent — and yet, from time to time, have sex with small boys? What if, when he does this, he mentally ‘puts off’ the fact that he’s a priest, and is careful to not allow it to effect his ability to perform the visible, public, communal, useful functions of a priest? Perhaps this priest is even a hero to his parish — performing above and beyond what is expected of him, and strengthening the faith of Catholics, and the welfare of the Church.
He is a good priest. He is also a pedophile. He is both — just never at the same time. After all, he’s human. None of us are perfect; we should not expect human perfection. Certainly, Catholics don’t.
I suspect many of those priests reasoned this way. But few people — Catholic or atheist — will let them get away with this. A priest is committed to being a priest all the time. You can’t violate the rules and morals at small little intervals and insist it doesn’t count, because the rest of it is done with impeccable skill. It’s not just a “job.”
The goal is, to commit to consistency. It is not to come up with good rationalizations for why it’s not that important, as long as you get most of the job done.
heddle #378 wrote:
People believe in God because they think the hypothesis best explains things which happen in the natural world. Theology and religion are supposed to be part of reality. If a scientist isn’t a scientist “for that part,” then there’s inconsistency. He ought to turn his scientific eye on his religion. Yet he won’t do that — because he can do the rest of the “job” anyway.
Being a priest and pedophile are compatible in the loose sense — as long as you compartmentalize what happens in those small little intervals. Being a scientist and religious believer are also compatible in the loose sense. You have to compartmentalize the religious claims, from everything else.
Sven,
If their argument stops at: religious scientists exist therefore they are compatible then I do not agree. It is necessary but not sufficient.
If that is their argument then I agree they have not made their case.
Yes there is something that is more important that such a simple argument ignores –the definition of what science is not. It is not “the exorcism of all irrational behavior and beliefs from anyone claiming to be a scientist.” If so, it would be incompatible with all humanity, not just the religious.
Your analogy (Browns fan from McKeesport) is in fact a perfect, fair analogy. There is nothing about living in McKeesport that says you can’t be a Browns’ fan. Likewise there is nothing about science that says you can’t hold crazy irrational ideas about this or that. But there is something about being a priest that says you can’t be a pedophile.
And that was my only point. The analogy fails. Your analogy doesn’t–but it won’t generate many chuckles.
Furthermore, my argument has always been different from “there are religious scientists,” as I think you know. My argument has always been: the onus is on those theorizing an incompatibility to demonstrate an observable effect of the alleged incompatibility because, as scientists, we know that if you can’t measure it then your theory is bullshit.
Heddle,
You may be making this argument, and the distinction you make is a very good one, but it is definitely not the argument that Orzel is making and Mooney is praising. Your argument is much better. (It’s incomplete, and I think ultimately wrong, but it is not stupid and blatantly invalid like Orzel’s.)
Notice that Orzel is not doing what you’re doing, at all, because he does not ackowledge that there are special compatibility requirements, as in your HOWEVER clause.
He explicitly says that all compatibility means is that you can do both.
That simple (and evidently wrong) notion of “compatibility” is what allows him to avoid actual discussion of the kind of real compatibility your HOWEVER clause is about; he dismisses that as mere “philosophy” and pre-emptively implies that anybody who quibbles about it is a “philosophical” loser who’s too stupid to get to work on time, and can be safely ignored.
In other words, truth of the kind of thing you’re (correctly) talking about as compatiblity requirements is dismissed as irrelevant.
Avoiding making your argument is designed precisely to avoid any discussion of what it would really mean for science and religion to be compatible.
That’s the whole point of the Dumpty-Orzel Thesis (see my comment 157) that “compatibility” only means that you can do both, without any unimportant “philosophical considerations” like the logical contradictions between scientific and religious worldviews that other people might be concerned about.)
(And which Chad himself claims do exist, and Chris seems to disagree, even if you don’t—that’s another reason they can’t make your argument, and argue instead that little things like contradictions don’t matter to compatibility.)
It really is that ridiculous.
heddle (#393)
Only because you’re engaging in some serious special pleading and completly ignoring the definitions or situations that allow a priest to be a pedophile. The cartoon itself says it: “It is an undeniable fact that paedophile priests exist.”
I just realised to what Dana Carvey’s “Church Lady” was referring when she’d say, “Well, isn’t that special.”
It’s pleading.
articulett, #390
Oh brother. I hope you are only accidentally quote-mining me. Now if you want to argue that I am somehow oblivious to the fact that there are pedophile priests–if that gives you a sense of accomplishment, feel free.
But what I in fact argued was quite different–it was that you cannot be a priest and a pedophile without breaking the rules.
Whether or not you are actually a quote-miner–well we’ll see if you acknowledge that you misrepresented what I wrote.
heddle #393 wrote:
The observable effect of the incompatibility is that religious scientists do not turn their scientific scrutiny on their religion.
Ray Hyman once set up a controlled experiment for applied kinesiology: when subjects thought they knew which substances were “supposed” to make their arm weak, they always reacted according to their presumed knowledge — never to the substance itself. The applied kinesiologist then turned to Hyman and explained that this was why they never did controlled experiments: the experiments were useless, because they didn’t work.
He was all for science, of course. You just had to know where to apply it.
Paul W, #394
Okay — maybe you are correct. (And maybe Sven is saying the same thing?) I read the cartoon this way:
1) If the mere existence of religious scientists proves compatibility,
2) well then, the mere existence of pedophile priests also proves compatibility.
I think what you are saying is that the analogy is funny and purposely flawed (perhaps as I described) to point out why the religious scientist argument is way too simpleminded.
If that is the case, then I stand corrected with regards to this cartoon.
That got lost in translation there…”grand metaphysical scheme” was Mooney’s sarcastic dismissal of the epistomologic incompatibility that we’re all actually talking about, except for those of us who are pretending we aren’t, and Nancy (who, of course, just doesn’t get it).
To the people who disagree with you on this, heddle, it’s a matter of intellectual honesty, ethical consistency, and sincere desire to avoid hypocrisy. They think that your other ways of knowing are useless, invalid, illogical, and unsupported. Therefore they choose instead to stick with just the one. It’s science/skepticism as a consistent epistomology as opposed to one that you platoon in and out depending on circumstance.
Again, I think I understand where you’re coming from with your worldview(s) behind you, and I have tried to explain where I think people like Myers and Coyne are coming from with theirs.
It’s a semanticophilostophical argument that will never–can never stop. Which is too bad, because it’s already more boring than exasperating and more exasperating than illuminating.
The real issue at hand, I’ll remind everyone at this point, is that the NAS and NCSE choose to feature a statement much like Mooney’s on official publications and press releases about evolution. People with the science-as-exclusive-epistomology viewpoint naturally take issue with this.
That’s not going to stop either.
I have been informed that:
So, she was setting aside the entire ‘if you think it, you’ve done it’ aspect of sin in standard Christianity? Nancy was informing us that sinful thoughts that one acts on are worse than mere sinful thoughts?
Interesting.
I wonder how many Christian apologists would agree with her on that…
(And thanks for the heads-up, I had missed that aspect of her commentary.)
heddle sez (in part):
Perhaps this:
Science must, by definition, alter its postulates when they are found to be opposed to observation and experiment. When and where religion does this, and only then and there, is it compatible with science. In all areas in which religion has refused to alter its postulates when they differ with observation and experiment, it is in opposition to science.
Does that work?
Less an observable effect than a clarification of the nature and purpose of science, and the nature and operations of religion, demonstrating in what ways they are in opposition.
But Heddle… the rules are nebulous and you assert there are priest “rules” but not science “rules”… what are these “rules” and what happens when you break them… and how do you know… and why the tangent on rules?
It’s like “compatibility”– you are just using words in a shifty way because you don’t like the obvious point of the analogy.
Although, a priest with pedophilia is more odious than a religious scientists, they are both a contradiction in our understanding of the terms– a bit of an oxymoron. It’s not about “rules”, it’s about the word “compatible” and “reconcile”.
Many scientists feel that the accommodationists are using the term “compatible” very loosely to imply that some superstitions (main-stream religion) are “more compatible” with science than others… even though the evidence does not warrant such a conclusion.
I don’t think your religion is more “compatible” with science than astrology or new age philosophy. I don’t think it’s “less compatible” either. I just wouldn’t describe any of these things as “compatible” with science no matter how many people were able to “reconcile” such things in their mind. And I don’t care how you play with words or a how unfalsifiable your beliefs are.
Nobody has made a case why scientists should be in the business of propping up some supernatural beliefs while educating people against others. It seems dishonest. But that is exactly what you accommodationists are arguing for!
Sadly, “dishonest in the name of religion” is one of the terms that should be contradictory, but it’s becoming more expected.
Gaaaaaaaah! No. “Science” in the sense being argued is not the category of professional scientists; it is a means of arriving at beliefs based on evidence. This isn’t about scientists. Science has an epistemic incompatibility with any approaches that form and maintain beliefs irrationally – not on the basis of or in contradiction to empirical evidence.
(I talked on one of the Coyne threads months ago about how, going with heddle’s silly scientist-focused view, it would be trivial to demonstrate that Stalinism was compatible with science, given that there were no doubt good scientists who did good scientific work while being diehard Stalinists. But of course that irrelevant, because that’s not the friggin’ argument being made about incompatibility.)
So a priest isn’t allowed to have any ungodly thoughts, ever. Good to know. There goes the entire priesthood. Remember, being a pedophile simply means wanting to do it, not that a person actually has done it. Nothing in your Bible says people won’t be tempted, Heddle. In fact, it says quite the opposite, so your claim is unbiblical.
Yep, that’s it Heddle. The cartoon is saying both cases of “A and B therefore A is consistent with B” are poor arguments.
heddle (#399)
Well, we can disagree about whether the analogy is flawed because it doesn’t have to be an exact comparison. I’m glad you can see it’s beside the actual point, though.
Science has an epistemic incompatibility with any approaches that form and maintain beliefs irrationally – not on the basis of or in contradiction to empirical evidence.
Let me see if I can make this even more clear: It doesn’t matter who the people are who are employing or espousing such approaches. They don’t have to be scientists. They don’t have to be nonscientists. They don’t have to be religious (religion is simply one category of fundamentally-unscientific epistemic approaches). And they don’t have to do it consistently. But when they do, what they’re doing is incompatible with science. Fundamentally and irreparably.
@Anri
You are very welcome. See for example her two very first posts @23 and 32 :
“Religion is a belief-system and the priests were classified as paedophiliac not because they believed its acceptability, but because they performed the act. If the priest kept his positive thoughts about paedophilia to himself and never perfomed the act, no problem.
Now if the comparison was a priest who was an active paedophiliac, and a meteorologist who prayed to Zeus in order to predict the weather it would work. Both run counter to the job description.”
“It is about the job – in the analogy that was made in the post to which this comment thread is attached.As far as the Catholic Church is concerned a priest having sex with anyone violates the job contract, and so that would have been sufficient to represent an irreconcilable situation.”
And #69 just to make sure : “But if the Pope used that argument it would be silly – because the pedophilia (or any sex really) is a direct repudiation of the vows the Priest took in order to become a Priest. It’s a broken contract.
I tend to skim when I read, and I admit I missed some of the more provking things Nancy said, like “The lot of you absolutists need to seriously get real.”
Nancy could have just said “because this is Earth, not Vulcan…” instead of “Where do you all hang out?”, in the accusatory tone. (Still, I couldn’t help but agree that there is something vaguely “Vulcan” about insisting on the incompatibility of science and religion. Well no shit they’re incompatible, but what do we do about that? People are irrational.)
So I take back my scolding of the scolding.
Perhaps an interesting analogy that might have worked as well would be an atheist priest. If he keeps his personal views to himself, says all the right things, keeps his vows, performs his duties correctly, and behaves in exemplary fashion, then you could say that being an atheist is compatible with being a priest.
Once again, a rather loose sense of ‘compatible.’
Well, maybe if the accommodationists stopped insisting they are compatible, people would stop insisting they are wrong ?
According to Paul W. @112 : “One of the better applications of Chad’s argument, (which Mooney says “nails it”) is this:
Compatible only means you can do both things.”
So yes, it would seem it stops there. Hence the fact that no analogy is even really needed since they claim “If a and b meets 1, then a and b are 2”. Which is obviously incomplete. As you state, 1 may be a necessary condition for 2 but it is not sufficient.
I think so, but I’m not sure I understand what you mean.
What’s not obvious to anybody who hasn’t been following the Orzel/Mooney thing—and some people who have, as I’ll explain in a second—is that the cartoon really isn’t an unfair presentation of their argument. Incredible as it may seem, they really do overtly make that patently invalid argument, and claim that they don’t need to make your argument, which at least addresses the real issue.
It does point up a weakness of the cartoon as a standalone joke. It’s an inside joke, because you have to understand that it’s actually not an unfair parody of what Orzel & Mooney say.
It’s a fair criticism of an argument they actually make, and if you’re in on the joke, that makes it simply hilarious, because it’s so obviously “over the top”—as your incredulity demonstrates, unbelievably over the top—but still literally true, too.
Another plus on the New Atheist side, the humor is all the sweeter because for once, those guys made a clear enough argument that it’s trivial to prove it’s way beyond stupid. Usually that sort of thing takes work because of all the intentional vaguery. This one’s a breeze.
Getting people to acknowledge this is important. It’s necessary for people to appreciate the nature of the problem before we can productively discuss how to address it.
…and we’re rational. We’re selfish and we’re generous. We’re violent and we’re peaceful…. It isn’t utopian to think that it’s productive to work to encourage rational evidence-based thinking/practice in education, politics, and all of our institutions. And it’s immoral and dangerous to abandon people to the irrational (I think Marvin Harris in Nancy’s quotation above called it an intellectual crime against humanity).
heddle wrote:
lenoxuss (#409)
Good question. I think a start would be making it less taboo to challenge people’s irrational beliefs. It’s currently more taboo to tell someone he’s being irrational than for him to share his irrational beliefs with people who did not ask him what he believes. Also we should be rigorous in teaching children the difference between knowledge and belief, the importance of removing bias in the search for knowledge, and the where the burden of proof lies. While we can’t be rational all the time, we could do a much better job of learning when we ought not forgive ourselves for being irrational.
WowbaggerOM,
Only when you are engaged in the activity for which the rules were designed. If I don’t apply the Marquis of Queensberry rules when eating French Toast, it does not mean that eating French Toast is incompatible with boxing.
Except that, to the intellectually honest, science, unlike the Queensberry (an outspoken atheist, funnily enough) rules applies to everything – including the questions we don’t like hearing the answers to.
So it’s more like your French Toast falls out of your hand and onto the ground – but instead of accepting that gravity is what got it there you insist that it was the magic invisible dropping fairies (who hate French Toast) – but you refuse to test this because everyone knows that magic invisible dropping fairies exist outside of science.
heddle #416 wrote:
A while back I read a couple books on the beginnings of the scientific method: Soul Made Flesh and Flesh in the Age of Reason. Both of them pointed out that it was common for the ‘natural philosophers’ of the 17th and 18th century to reassure the churches (and themselves) that their pursuits were not ungodly, because they would be sure to find evidence for supernatural and spiritual entities, and prove the existence of the soul.
Short excerpt:
(From Flesh in the Age of Reason, Roy Porter)
Are you suggesting that prohibitions against pedophilic behavior were designed specifically for priests?
Damn you, Sastra, my reading list is long enough already. *cry*
@ 417
WowbaggerOM
Your post just reminded me
of this Onion piece
Heddle:
Sastra,
I would argue that you excerpt proves my point. If you want to investigate the supernatural, as we discussed before, you can use the scientific method. If you find an explanation, then it wasn’t supernatural. If it was supernatural, assuming there is such a thing, you won’t find an explanation. But there is no incompatibility–unless you invoke the supernatural “and then a miracle occurs” as the explanation for your data.
In days of yore, trying to measure the weight change of a person at death (and hoping for a positive result) is a perfectly fine example of good science–assuming you recorded and reported the data accurately (i.e., followed the rules of science), even though they refuted your expectation of a supernatural effect. Again, no incompatibility.
He was my favorite anthropologist when I was young. I really liked Cannibals and Kings. I don’t know everything about him, so he could have had a side I wouldn’t like, but not that I know of. Very interesting. Also lived, IIRC, on Cranberry Island, ME, which is very cool.
heddle wrote:
Better known as the ‘heads I win, tails you lose’ gambit – and just as transparent in its dishonesty.
John Morales
They are not. For example, the YEC belief in a young earth is incompatible with science. Not because it invokes the miraculous, but because the miracle it invokes does not include: “and God gave the universe the appearance of age.”
Put differently, we cannot investigate claims of past miracles–by definition they are singular events and alas no data were taken–but we can measure any lasting effects they might have had.
As for deeper issues such as the existence of God–if you have an experiment that can be done–by all means do it.
If not, what you’re doing is incompatible with science. Same if you exclude areas of knowledge from this requirement, in whatever way and for whatever reason.
In a lot of ways, I don’t really think of religious scientists as “actually” religious. I think of them as religious in a strictly cultural, root-for-the-team way. Which still has its own problems, but not the same as the problem of applying religious thinking to science, which, as far as I can tell, is not something actual scientists are guilty of; exceptions are countable on one hand.
Instead, we see the opposite happen — science applied to religion — which is, all in all, a good thing. If all scientists were always atheists, they might not have bothered to test the efficacy of prayer. (Meh, they probably would have.) Once they did, it was confirmed that intercessory prayer doesn’t work. This is a very, very good thing for people to know — life-and-death good. (Of course, we all know what phenomenon is responsible for people not simply accepting that truth and moving on.)
A lot of this is similar to the question of whether someone can be “moderately” religious. To many atheists, it seems that, for example, the Bible either is literally true, or it was authored without any divine help (because God is said to be perfect). Yes millions somehow believe in a non-literally “true” Bible. I have no idea how they pull it off.
I’m a pacifist who enjoys war games; I salute cognitive dissonance. This Alternet article gets at a phenomenon I’d like to see more of, and one that I think we are seeing more of in science, slowly but surely.
Sometimes the only way to get kids to not fear the dark is a transitional night-light period. Maybe the metaphor doesn’t apply, though. Religion can tend to get kind of all-or-nothing… hmm… tough questions.
WowbaggerOM,
NO, you are missing the boat, as a thought experiment can attest.
Suppose a donkey talked to you. Now suppose two explanations: 1) A clever magician’s trick and 2) God supernaturally made the donkey talk.
What would be the scientific conclusion of a serious research effort?
If the explanation is the clever magician, then your scientific investigation might uncover his trick. That is, you would have demonstrated it was not supernatural.
If the explanation was God, then even after a lifetime of research into the problem the scientific conclusion would be: I don’t know.
Which is exactly what I said:
You can pretend its a “heads I win tails you lose” argument, but only if you don’t use your brain.
I see heddle’s in broken-record mode. Again. I’ll go elsewhere for honest discussion.
So much stupidity in this thread. The cartoon is not intended to establish that science and religion are incompatible, and it does not contain a “bad analogy”. It is aimed directly at refuting a specific claim, made by that moron Chad Orzel and promoted by Chris Mooney, that ” science and religion are compatible– as they manifestly are, given the existence of religious scientists”. The cartoon illustrates the obvious — that the practice of both X and Y by a single individual does not alone make X and Y “manifestly compatible”. Period. Differences between pedophilic priests and religious scientists are irrelevant. Analogies must be judged by the relevance of the common elements, not the dissimilar elements.
heddle (#429)
So… what’s the point of belief? How do you decide when to make a non-scientific conclusion without special pleading or god of the gaps or any other fallacy?
God supernaturally made the donkey talk
An incoherent, nonsensical proposition — there are no supernatural causes, its an oxymoron.
If the explanation was God
“Goddidit” is the absence of explanation.
Except that this (and your argument in general) depends on the presupposition that your god’s intervention leaves no evidence – and the only reason you believe this is because no-one’s ever provided any evidence for god – circular reasoning at its finest.
But the result is the same – you still get to walk away with the coin, i.e. the claim that the supernatural must exist – because you’ve rigged the test.
The only thing you’re using your brain for is intellectual dishonesty.
Then there is no reason to unkillfile Heddle…
A. Noyd,
You may assume: none whatsoever. Whether or not I have a reason for what I believe is not relevant for this discussion.
truth machine, OM
Leaving aside that I inserted a qualifier, if there is such a thing [as the supernatural], which you have conveniently ignored, and leaving aside that you have misrepresented my discussion as if I were proposing God as an explanation whether than discussing a hypothetical, you are begging the question. “The proposition of the supernatural is nonsense because there is no supernatural.”
SC OM,
Come back–I’m done. Mrs. Calvinist has summoned me.
Heddle, it is indeed the deeper issues to which I refer. If they are beyond testability, surely you then concede you hold those beliefs on faith, not knowledge; and hence that they are no more and no less valid than any other beliefs based on faith (though they might be mutually contradictory).
A fine state of affairs, where one considers people are equally justified in believing mutually-contradictory things.
Yet, you don’t think this is incompatible with science!
heddle #423 wrote:
But you’re leaving out the possibility that the proper explanation is that the phenomenon was indeed supernatural. “Supernatural” is not necessarily a place-holder term for ignorance.
Imagine a situation where a holy man (or wizard) claims that he can move objects with his thoughts alone, raise the dead, and make donkeys talk — and do this under controlled conditions. He can, and does. Again and again, scientists try to discover trickery, or find physical explanations, and, again and again, they fail. It appears that this person can exercize his willpower as a kind of force, and make things happen simply through the power of his intentions.
You now have several options:
1.) Say that science has confirmed the existence of a supernatural force.
2.) Say that what was once thought to be a supernatural force is really a natural force, because science is able to test it.
3.) Insist that there must be a perfectly natural explanation, and until there is, all science can say is “unknown.”
Given the strength and extreme nature of the evidence here, I would say that #3 is a bit of a cop-out. The scientific conclusion can only be agnostic in the sense that all scientific conclusions are provisional.
The second response is an empty response. Before it was tested, this was considered a supernatural force. It turns out to be real. So now it’s re-labeled a ‘natural’ force.
Big whoopty-do. The term is insignificant. Changing it does nothing but make the scientists look like they’re saving face.
Consider an atheist who claims that there is no God, because God is unknowable. Only nature is knowable. God then reveals themselves to the atheist, who admits that it happened, now loves, worships, and obeys this Creator Being — but calls it “Nature” because God is UNKNOWABLE. They’re still an atheist. See? Can’t prove God to him. There is no God. There’s only nature.
After-the-fact word tricks.
NoR wrote:
There are people I killfile, but heddle won’t ever be one of them – it’s a combination of SIWOTI addiction and a genuine desire to understand (and devise refutations of) the different arguments for Christianity. I’ve only been doing this a year and a half (or so). Much of it is still new to me.
My call of intellectual dishonesty isn’t a personal attack; it’s a criticism of the rationalisation process he chooses to use to shore up his beliefs.
heddle (#436)
Actually, it goes to the core of this discussion since we’re talking about epistemology. But even if you persist in pretending my question is irrelevant, would you answer it anyways?
I knew you were going to have a problem with this. If we can’t know there is a supernatural, then simply saying there is no supernatural is the same as saying there might be one but we can’t know about it.
~*~*~*~*~*~
John Morales (#437)
Because he’s ignoring science as an epistemology and only recognizes science as a method, of course. He wouldn’t be wrong if everyone else limited science that way.
For many cases, you’re simply wrong. Francis Collins, for example, is actually religious in any meaningful sense of the term.
You appear to be falling into the error that people like heddle encourage you to – thinking about science and religion as areas of professional practice or organized activity in this context. “The institutions involved with scientific investigation” and “the community of professional scientists” are indeed two definitions of “science” useful in some contexts (same with religion), but that’s not what’s being talked about here. See my posts @ #403 and #407.
Which is why I killfiled him. He would never look at his religious beliefs with proper scientific scrutiny. His evasions became boring since he would switch over to religious mode responding. Interesting, but boring, disconnect (the disconnect, not the responses). Uninteresting repetitive responses…
The only time I read heddle is when Wowbagger and Sastra quote him.
That is not the argument and I think you know it.
That is “the” argument, jackass — the argument made by Chad Orzel and promoted by Chris Mooney and lampooned by this cartoon.
The argument is not simply “Some scientists are religious therefore science and religion are compatible.”
Yes “the” argument — the one made by Chad Orzel — is simply that, jackass.
It is more like this:
No, jackass, Orzel’s argument is not more like that.
If that is the case, then I stand corrected with regards to this cartoon.
Right, so from post #17 to post #393 you blabbered on about something you knew nothing about and attacked those who knew what they were talking about, fool.
For many cases, you’re simply wrong. Francis Collins, for example, is actually religious in any meaningful sense of the term.
Moreover, there is a real possibility that they will apply religious thinking to science, that their beliefs may affect science, especially when they attain positions in which they’re deciding on funding of research or education. As has been discussed here, there’s a very real danger of subverting science by willful neglect (my #427 should have read “investigation” where it says “this requirement”). This can include some of the most important and dynamic scientific fields, such as neuroscience.
Damn it, I wanted heddle to respond to my #434. But I’m happy because I’ve always wanted to have a suitable response to the ‘god is outside of science’ dodge and now I think I have one.
Anyway, I thought the original comic made perfect sense, but perhaps a better comparison would be with a corrupt police officer who commits crimes but doesn’t arrest him or herself for it – the ‘law-enforcing’ part of the brain gets switched off when it isn’t wanted, just like the ‘scientific method should be applied to everything’ part of the brain gets switched off for religious scientists.
So, you would say that eating French Toast is COMPATIBLE with boxing? Is it as compatible as astrology is compatible with science? As COMPATIBLE as religion is with science? Clearly people can and do practice both. Just like priests can practice pedophilia (I don’t think god made any rules about not doing so –it wasn’t mentioned in the top ten commandments anyhow.)
And the problem with your “miracles can’t be proven” argument is that if science has no way to confirm something, then why should we think that anyone could (including your clergyman or holy book) –especially given human proneness to making such magical stories up when they encounter phenomena they don’t understand. (And before science there was a whole lot more things people didn’t understand.)
You may as well make an appeal to “magic”. How is “goddidit” a better explanation than “it was magic”? How is it more “compatible” with science exactly??
The truth about all you accommodationists is that you want to leave breathing room for your pet delusions–but you have no argument that doesn’t leave a wide opening for all those other crazy unfalsifiable explanations that you disregard with the wave of a hand. Goddidit is not a more scientific explanation than “astrological influences”. It just isn’t. It’s not more scientifically valid, nor more rational, nor more justified a belief.
You can lie to yourselves, but don’t play those word games trying to get us to lie along with you. I don’t feel that any supernatural explanation of anything is compatible with science in any way but the most trivial way i.e.(there are people who practice both and don’t find them incompatible. Moreover, I think that those who say otherwise are lying to themselves and/or others.
Goddidit is unfalsifiable… big deal… so is the matrix theory — and last Thursdayism…. that makes these ideas all equally unscientific in my book–equally “compatible/unccompatible with” science. (And, I believe, the Dover Judge came to a similar decision.)
Your job (heddle) is to show us why your brand of religion should be treated differently by science then the superstitions you don’t adhere to. Don’t ask for special privileges for your woo that you wouldn’t give to the local Wiccan. Don’t pretend that your claims of “magic” are more compatible with science then other claims of magic you’d call “mythological”.
Leaving aside that I inserted a qualifier, if there is such a thing [as the supernatural], which you have conveniently ignored, and leaving aside that you have misrepresented my discussion …
You’re an idiot and full of crap. I did not “misrepresent” your discussion — I didn’t represent it at all. I merely pointed to problematic phrases that you employed; one can draw what conclusions they will from that. Had I “represented” the discussion, I would have defended you against Wowbagger’s mischaracterization of “heads you win …” but I wasn’t interested in addressing that level.
P.S. Heddle, I way prefer your position over that of Sastra in #438, which I consider a complete ontological muddle — but I’ve had that debate with her before.
If you feel inclined I’d like to hear what the problem with it was – I thought it made sense in context; it was a good analogy for the kind of rigged test he was presenting with the ‘the supernatural exists but it’s either outside of science or what you’ve found wasn’t supernatural to begin with.’
‘the supernatural exists but it’s either outside of science or what you’ve found wasn’t supernatural to begin with.’
That’s not what he said, What he did say is trivially true: if we can provide a natural explanation then it isn’t supernatural, and if it’s supernatural (if there is such a thing) then we can’t provide a natural explanation.
truth Machine OM #149 wrote:
Yes, I remember. As I recall, it eventually came down to defining the “supernatural,” and problems with verifying irreducibility.
P.S. It helps a lot to have at least a minimal proficiency at propositional logic. Suppose there is nothing supernatural. Then Heddle’s statement reduces to “(natural explanation -> [true]) and ([false] -> no natural explanation)” which reduces to “[true] and [true]”.
That’s why any supernatural unfalsifiable claim is the equivalent of saying “it’s magic”. There’s no way to determine which such claim is more likely to be truer than any other and no way to distinguish them from someone saying “it’s magic”.
I get tired of the woo using the fact that we can’t prove their woo wrong as evidence that it could be true. Sure, it COULD be– just as all the crazy other things that contradict their own faith COULD be true. But that doesn’t give a rational person any reason to consider it so.
truth machine OM #451 wrote:
That seems reasonable.
But what about “if we can explain something as the result of a supernatural force, then it wasn’t the result of a supernatural force?”
it eventually came down to defining the “supernatural,”
Yeah, I take “supernatural” to actually be, you know, supernatural — whereas you take “supernatural” to just be things that someone somewhere labeled at some time or another “supernatural”. Thus, in #438,
Wow, imagine that, “relabeling” real forces to be “natural”. Pardon my fully deserved snark. And you equivocate here over “was considered” — by whom? Not by ontologically astute scientists who don’t accept the existence of “a supernatural force”.
articullett #454 wrote:
I think that many supernatural claims are falsifiable, in the scientific sense (meaning it’s not absolute.) Depending on how you define it, so is “magic.” They make predictions.
Truth Machine wrote:
Oh, okay. Thanks.
SC wrote:
I know heddle would deny this and cite himself as an example – his (stated) position is always to lessen his god to accommodate science; however, he rationalises this by claiming that his now-lessened god isn’t lessened at all – which is where the cognitive dissonance comes in and the tapdancing routine begins.
Of course, heddle is (IIRC) a physicist, so even if he was secretly putting woo before reality it’s not going to have as much direct impact on human lives as it is would be if he was in something like medicine.
But what about “if we can explain something as the result of a supernatural force, then it wasn’t the result of a supernatural force?”
Who are you quoting? Not Heddle. Regardless, there are no “supernatural forces” except in fiction — it’s an incoherent concept. An empirical explanation is necessarily causal, physical, and natural — else it isn’t a valid explanation, it’s just handwaving.
truth machine OM #456 wrote:
No, I take ‘supernatural’ things to have rather specific features, which distinguish them from natural things.
How do you define the supernatural? Could you give examples?
Sorry if this has already been mentioned. I only made it to post #100 or so before I couldn’t take anymore of nancymcclernan’s insipidity.
I wonder if it would help if the author of the “Jesus and Mo” cartoon would post what point he was trying to make about the cartoon. The analogy was painfully obvious to most of us, but for some reason, not to nancy (or pjsouza for that matter).
No, I take ‘supernatural’ things to have rather specific features, which distinguish them from natural things.
There are no supernatural “things” — you are talking nonsense. As I said, you’re ontologically muddled.
How do you define the supernatural?
The supernatural is a fictitious incoherent notion of “nonphysical” causes or entities.
Could you give examples?
All examples are necessarily fictitious — deities, afterlifes, ghosts, souls, etc. Such things as ESP powers are not “supernatural” any more than is phlogiston or the ether — they are simply posited phenomena that don’t happen to exist.
truth machine OM #459 wrote:
No, I’m not quoting anyone. I was trying to understand your position.
Is it possible that you could be wrong?
If you were, what would have to happen, to change your mind?
P.S.
me: “whereas you take “supernatural” to just be things that someone somewhere labeled at some time or another “supernatural”.
Sastra: No, …
Your “no” is contradicted by what you wrote in #438 — which is why I quoted it.
As I said, we’ve had this debate before. I don’t want to have it again because it is almost certain to turn out the same way (for the same reasons). And I’ve got other things I’m supposed to be doing, so bye for now.
truth machine (#451)
But doesn’t that presuppose that a scientific explanation is the same as a natural explanation? I don’t necessarily reject that. It works so long as people don’t try to claim to know anything about the supernatural. But how is it not problematic once people do claim to know about the supernatural? It’s not like they ever present any working alternative “way of knowing.”
~*~*~*~*~*~
RamziD (#461)
He did. He mentioned Mooney as the “scriptwriter” and linked to the relevant Discover blog article.
I think most religious claims are unfalsifiable in that god could make things look any way he wanted to (he could make the earth look old, de plant bones to test us, etc.) I’ve heard that when you are reincarnated you forget your old life and that alien visitors erase your memory, and the matrix feels like real life but we are brains in a vat, etc.
So, Heddle has a point in saying that we can’t prove his version of supernatural events didn’t occur… but, by the same token, we can’t prove Zeus never existed or that gremlins aren’t planting thoughts in peoples’ heads etc.
We CAN’T prove miracles never occurred. However, that is a far cry from believing that certain particular ones did while others didn’t. I don’t even think there’s a rational justification for imagining consciousness can exist without a material brain or that immaterial immeasurable beings or forces can affect the material.
And yet, every believer in the supernatural holds to some of these unfalsifiable claims while discarding others that conflict with the ones they believe in. I want to know what TOOLS they are using to distinguish the beliefs they hold from the delusions of people with conflicting beliefs.
I want to know why science should treat their supernatural beliefs differently then they themselves would treat different supernatural beliefs. If religion is “compatible” with science… is that all religion? New Age stuff and reincarnation and Islam and Scientology? Or just “some”– who decides? What do you mean by compatible? If all you mean is that science can’t prove it wrong, and some scientist somewhere believes it, then that means just about every “woo-woo” idea is “compatible” with science. The term “compatible” has become meaningless– a way of allowing believers to hear what they want to hear without communicating any real information at all.
Is it possible that you could be wrong?
About as possible as that there are married batchelors.
If you were, what would have to happen, to change your mind?
About the same — words would have to change their meanings.
truth machine #462 wrote:
If it can be portrayed and depicted in fiction, then it must be at least a little conceivable — so it can’t be completely incoherent. People have a loose, general understanding of what it means.
It seems to me that the ‘nonphysical’ cause is assumed to be a purely mental cause — or a mental type of cause (“Good” as a “force,” say.) It can be imagined.
It took a lot of hard work — over many years — to realize that thought was a process in the brain, and not an immaterial ‘thing’ or a ‘power.’ Most people still can’t quite wrap their minds around their minds.
TM:
I don’t – therein lies the problem. But I’m hoping to change that.
Like I care! :)
Yes, and I pointed this out to him on that Coyne thread way back when. It’s completely implausible that subscribing to the Chicago Statement wouldn’t have any effect on people’s choices and research as, say, archaeologists specializing in that region.* (Just want to emphasize that this is not a blanket statement and in any case not necessary to the basic incompatibility argument.) And when you start talking about administrative positions like Collins’… As I recall, he’s made statements about, among other things, the basis for morality that are worrying in terms of his support for research in related fields.
*heddle seems to think he has an out by saying that he personally isn’t interested in scientific investigations of Biblical questions, but welcomes research in those areas. It’s painful.
But doesn’t that presuppose that a scientific explanation is the same as a natural explanation?
As I said above, an empirical explanation is necessarily causal, physical, and natural — else it isn’t a valid explanation, it’s just handwaving. One can conclude this from a careful and detailed examination of the meanings of these words, but few people undertake that. If I get time later, I may post some further analysis supporting this claim.
truth machine OM #464 wrote:
Possibly ;)
Bye.
If something was supernatural, there would be no natural means for any natural being to know about.
I really don’t think there is a difference between calling something “supernatural” and saying “it’s magic”.
What distinguishes the supernatural from magic?
Even as a kid, I’d wonder how you are supposed to know which unbelievable story you were supposed to believe in and how you are supposed to know if you believe in the right invisible guy with the right fervency… (and if you didn’t, how were you supposed to remedy it?)
I thought the Jesus and Mo cartoonist is a she– Does anyone know for sure?
Also, is heddle a young earth creationist?
(and I’ll excuse your typos, pharyngulites, if you excuse mine–*damn, this lack of editing*)
articulett #466 wrote:
Agree; but that’s just one meaning of “unfalsifiable” — coming up with more and more implausible excuses for why what would normally falsify a claim, doesn’t really. Psychologically unfalsifiable, in practice — not conceptually so.
The JREF tests dowsing in previously agreed-upon controlled conditions: the dowser gets no better than chance. So then oh, he thinks, I can explain: the moon wasn’t in the right phase … or he had a sudden headache … or, or, or.
And yet, is ‘dowsing’ itself, as a hypothesis, falsifiable? Can it be tested? Could it, in theory, have passed the tests? Sure.
In theory, it’s falsifiable. In practice, the dowsers are intellectually dishonest. They may even say “dowsing cannot be tested. It is beyond science.” After all, these sensitive forms of energy interact only through the aid of sensitive minds, they are inherently mental.
I think the ‘supernatural’ is like dowsing. Falsifiable. Heck, someone even figured out they were in the Matrix, and we saw enough to convince us, as well. It’s only when the tests and predictions fail that people suddenly try to act as if they never expected strong, clear, empirical evidence in the first place. God is beyond science, outside of science, nothing at all that science could say anything about — for, or against.
Unless the evidence would be for. Suddenly, all that nonsense about ‘untestability’ would be forgotten.
Nope. He’s a Calvinist (though I don’t if that and YEC are mutually exclusive) and pretty much accepts all scientific findings as true – he just twists how this applies to his religion to help alleviate the cognitive dissonance.
No, a theistic evolutionist. He argues against creationism and ID.
Sastra:
A few comments on that:
First, coherent ≠ conceivable.
Second, coherency is a binary state: either something is coherent, or it’s not.
Third, coherence in this sense refers to self-consistency; that is, that the parts of the whole are not mutually contradictory and that their relationships/dependencies are consistent.
No, absolutely not. However, he claims to subscribe to this:
http://www.bible-researcher.com/chicago1.html
(See especially Article XII.) Compatible with science? No way. (But you wouldn’t believe the contortions he goes through to argue that it is.)
John Morales #478 wrote:
Perhaps, but I think a lot will depend on what level of description or understanding is being required.
If you were to ask me how a radio works, I could give a very vague yet coherent answer. Ask me to get into any specifics, however, and my description falls apart. It’s an incoherent mess, where I more or less make up stuff that sorta kinda sounds maybe right if you don’t know much about it and neither does your audience because you’re all using mental analogies to things you do understand a bit better.
“Spirituality” is like that. Just coherent enough, to be wrong.
Sastra says, “If it can be portrayed and depicted in fiction, then it must be at least a little conceivable — so it can’t be completely incoherent. People have a loose, general understanding of what it means.”
See, here’s where I start to have problems. A fictional portrayal doesn’t have to be well thought out. I can conceive of an occurrence that has a magical cause, but since I’ve no idea how such a cause might work, my mind just leaves out those inconvenient details. For instance, does magic obey relativity? Is it instantaneous, or is there a celestial speed limit.
If Jebus makes water into wine, where the hell did the carbon atoms come from for the ethyl alcohol an sugars. Were they sucked out of the air, created from nothing? What?
Likewise, if there is a spiritual realm, how does it interact with the physical. When two physical bodies interact, the force one exerts on the other is countered by an equal and opposite force? Is there a force of a physical body on a soul? Is it equal and opposite? What would that even mean for a nonphysical body without mass?
Essentially, the only way to fill in these details is to make shit up! And that is inherently incoherent, because I could just as easily make different shit up tomorrow.
Sastra, I take it that by ‘perhaps’ you mean ‘depending on the level of description’.
Do you disagree that, at any given level of description, an explanation is either coherent or not?
Your response to tm was regarding the supernatural — at that level of description, it’s the notion that there exists something outside nature but which affects and is affected by nature (where nature is defined as all space-time and mass-energy and their relationships/interactions).
How is that not incoherent?
a-ray-in-dilber-space #481 wrote:
Right; ask a believer to describe what they mean by “spirit,” and they will happily start out with all sorts of vague phrases and simple analogies. Ask them to be more specific, and they fall apart; since they can’t get more detailed, they classify their vagueness as a type of humility, or the proper reaction to “mystery.” They skim on the surface, and see this as depth. Superficial is ‘good enough.’ Like in fiction.
However, if there really were supernatural or magical forces, it might be possible to test them to see their limits, and get more specific on how they work, and under what conditions. I think though that they would always be dependent on, or related to, something mental — a feeling, or attitude, or intention, or wish. That’s what makes them supernatural.
As mysterious as it is, nobody tried to claim that “dark energy” must be supernatural. That would have required linking it to love, or life, or consciousness — giving us a special place in a caring universe.
truth machine (#471)
What I’m trying to say is refusing to resolve into coherent sentences thanks to a week of insomnia. The gist of it is that what works for you because you are consistent in your rejection of the (or “a” or “any”) supernatural doesn’t work for heddle or other people who aren’t consistent. Apparently I can’t do better than that, so I give up.
~*~*~*~*~*~
a_ray_in_dilbert_space (#481)
And tend to be better when they’re not. Or easier to suspend belief over. I get so tired of every writer’s clever attempts to explain some details while neglecting a whole bunch of others. Like a character who can turn herself invisible but has to take her clothes off because clothes aren’t a part of “herself.” Well, what about all the bacteria in and on her? Do dead cells count as part of “herself” if they’re within a certain range? The writer opened that can of worms and then left it sitting around with the lid off, dammit! (Of course, I’m equally irritated if the writer fails to consider all consequences of giving characters certain abilities or knowledge. So I’m pretty much impossible to please.)
Er, that last parenthetical was about consequences in relation to the writer’s plot as opposed to reality. Brain no worky. *sigh*
[OT]
A. Noyd,
And how does an invisible person see, with invisible eye lenses and retinas? ;)
A. Noyd wrote:
Oddly enough I wondered about that fact when it came to being ‘raptured up’ – is everything else meant to be (heh-heh) left behind, i.e. clothes, prosthetics etc. plus a pile of everything non-human that lives in/on us?
Oh noes, you mean folks are nakid in heaven?????
John Morales #483 wrote:
When dealing with the concept of the “supernatural,” I usually don’t try to talk much about “inside nature” or “outside nature” — because those lines are too subjective and flexible. They move them all over the place, with no clear line of demarcation. As you can see. Your definition here contains contradictions — so I’d agree with you, it’s incoherent.
People have a natural tendency though to divide reality into the physical, material, world of objects — and the immaterial, mental, world of thoughts and values — with this second world being “higher,” or better, or prior to, the first one. Sometimes they’re willing to grant that the spirit world is, or contains, its own kind of “energy” or “spirit substance” — though they don’t mean anything by the term “energy” that a physicist or an engineer will recognize. They mean force. Power. Intention.
This has been my working definition:
The Supernatural: Non-material, irreducible mental Being, beings, or ‘forces’ which exist apart from and above the material realm, outside of regular laws, and which effect the natural world through the power of intentions or values.
From the perspective of a naturalist, that’s either incoherent, or wrong. But, I think that if you just slide on the surface of the concepts, it’s coherent enough to get the idea across, and imagine the sorts of things which would support it — or count against it.
I read through that Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy… or I tried. Wow. It reminds me of reciting the Apostle’s Creed as a kid. Or even the Pledge of Allegiance.
I just think it’s so weird that humans write down what they are “supposed to” believe. It’s almost as if they think believing something can make it true.
Or maybe, they feel like the invisible guy gives them bonus points for strongly believing in things that are unbelievable (thus proving their faith.)
The nice thing about the truth is that it is the same for everybody no matter what anyone believes, and so you don’t have to reinforce the idea with repetition, credos, rationalizations, and word games. The earth was never flat despite the billions of people who perceived it as such and all the word games in the world can’t change that.
I can see that heddle and nancy aren’t stupid– but they get “stupid” in order to keep from hearing what is actually being said when it challenges what they’ve come to believe.
They want to apply the tools of science and skepticism to everything except the one thing they feel special and saved for believing.
What I wonder is what do they tell themselves regarding their reasons for posting here. Are they trying to convert? Shore up their faith? Win some sort of mental game? Challenge themselves? Claim victimization? I post here and read here because I really like the people here. I learn a lot and laugh a lot. But why does heddle post here?
He seems to need us to believe that his brand of religion is compatible with science, and yet I can see no argument for thinking his supernatural beliefs are any more compatible with science than belief in astrology, alien visitation, or reincarnation. But heddle clearly doesn’t think these notions are as compatible with science as his beliefs are, yet he cannot elucidate the difference except to some vagaries about rule following.
Sastra,
Well, the thing about dark energy is that it influences matter and is in turn influenced by it–there is at least coherence to the idea. We can begin to enumerate the properties of this odd and mysterious entity in relation to how it interacts with more familiar matter.
True story: When physicists were trying to figure out the physics of beta decay, they were puzzled because the combined energy of the nucleus and emitted beta particle (electron) didn’t seem to be conserved. Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg even went so far as to begin working on a theory where energy and momentum were only conserved on average!
Wolfgang Pauli took a different approach–he posited the existence of a massless, chargeless particle, dubbed by Fermi the neutrino, or “little neutral one”. Pauli wrote in a letter, “I have committed the ultimate sin; I have introduced a particle that can never be observed.”
And yet, within 30 years, the neutrino had been found and now we are on the verge of using them to peer into the hearts of supernovae. (Trivia: if you were in the vicinity of a supernova explosion, it would be the neutrino flux that killed you.)
The point is that as long as anything interacts with matter PHYSICALLY, we can discover its properties. When you start allowing the nonphysical in–without having direct and repeatable experience thereof–then there’s not much we can do but say, “That’s nice,” and wait for their story to change.
Sastra, yeah I think I get you, and I think you get me. Thanks.
—
A very nice definition, though I have couple of quibbles, one grammatic (typo?), and one of omission:
1. ‘effect’ → ‘affect’.
2. The supernatural also is supposedly affected by the natural, no?
</pedant>
articulett,
He, too, suffers from SIWOTI syndrome. :)
Also, I have no knowledge of whether Nancy is religious or not, but yes she does seem to have a problem with grasping certain concepts.
(And a nice vocabulary!)
Sastra, OK you had me up to here:
“…and which effect[sic] the natural world through the power of intentions or values.”
First, grammar police–I think you mean affect (effect could work to if you mean “create”), right?
If so, does the natural world also affect theri intentions and values. How much? Is the amount we affect them dependent on how much they affect us? Is the effect repeatable? Is it controllable by us? By others in the spirit realm?
This is where the incoherence starts.
For Sven De Milo, who at post #369 wrote:
Scott takes a slightly different tack. Instead of simply asserting that the trivial definition of ‘compatible’ is the only important one, he wishes to justify that conclusion by moving the semantic-definition game over to the word ‘science.’ The problem with the compatibility-denial argument, Scott suggests, is that it mistakenly views ‘science’ as “some metaphysical scheme.”
Hmmm. I didn’t view this as a goalpost-shifting move, but I could see where it could be taken as such. For what it’s worth, I know that it’s possible to make an ‘incompatibility’ argument with respect to science and religion without referencing a metaphysical scheme. It’s just that in my experience that subtext is usually manifest in those who make the argument.
I guess I should ask Scott exactly what he thinks science is instead (so here: I’m asking), but presumably he (and heddle, who thinks similarly on this issue) sees it as a toolbox rather than a worldview. You open up your toolbox and do science when that’s what you’re doing and when it’s appropriate, and then when you’re done you close it up and approach life with some other “way(s) of knowing.”
I would say that science is more than just a toolbox, it is a systemic attempt to acquire and explain phenomena. But (unlike faith) science is emphatically not a belief system. Rather, I think that science is a value system. Strictly speaking, these values can be thought of as axioms which are accepted for the purpose of doing science.
For example, one of the implicit axioms of science is that there are regularities in Nature (sometimes called ‘laws’) which can be discovered by careful investigation. We can’t actually prove that the Universe is ‘lawful’, but we would despair of making any long-term progress if we seriously considered the alternative, that the Universe is essentially chaotic, rather than lawful.
Another axiom is that science values claims which are testable and based on evidence, and does not consider other sorts of claims, including (but not limited to) supernatural claims. Again, we can’t actually prove that the only things that exist are those which meet the former criteria, but our best course for the purpose of doing science is to firmly exclude them.
Sven also wrote:
And if that’s what science is to you, then of course you’ll prefer to de-emphasize the formal sense of ‘compatible’. It doesn’t matter to you. And Scott, as a committed Christian science teacher, and heddle, and Collins and other scientist/theists are of course going to espouse this point of view, NOMA basically, because it is the mechanism by which they avoid cognitive dissonance.
Except, actually, I don’t endorse NOMA at all. I’ve blogged about why, here. I can’t pretend to speak for Heddle, but I know that I don’t share the same outlook as Frances Collins. I’m most sympathetic to Ian Barbour’s stance of dialogue.
I would also like to firmly distance myself from being perceived as sympathetic to Nisbet and Mooney’s approach. I’m not, and I explain why here.
Finally, with respect to the “accomodationist” flareup prompted by Coyle’s criticism of NCSE’s policies, I’ve actually proposed that NCSE adopt more neutral language with respect to science and religion, something like this:
“Individuals privately hold a range of views on the question of the correct relationship between science and religion, debating the question of how they can be compatible, if at all. But scientists themselves have no question about how science should be conducted: by careful measurement, experiment and reasoning based on evidence, rather than faith.”
I’ve discussed this here and on other blogs (including that of John Wilkins, who I immensely respect).
articulett #491 wrote:
From what I can tell, he’s just interested in the topic of science and religion, and has a curious mind. It’s much more interesting to him to argue with people he doesn’t agree with, than just garner assent from people who agree. He teaches Sunday school to teenagers, I think. He also believes he has a strong position, and wants to see if he can persuade atheists that he at least makes a good case. Or, perhaps, see that they just can’t ‘get’ him. That’s my guess.
I think he generally respects us, partly because we do put thought into our beliefs, and partly because we all work together on two of his favorite causes — against creationism and pro-science — and separation of church and state. But we frustrate the hell out of him.
It’s probably the kind of frustration he can deal with, though. SIWOTI.
I don’t remember nancy ever specifically saying what her religious beliefs were. I was working on the assumption that she was another atheist. Could have missed it, though.
ARGHH;
Affect. Not ‘effect.’
Though I suppose it could be both…
John Morales #493 wrote:
Sometimes — depends who you ask. They are usually ‘related.’
Think of it as your immaterial thoughts magically causing your body to move, through sympathy or intent. Now extend that invisible force outwards, in imagination. Imagine if the ability to imagine something, made it real. Don’t go into mechanism — the mechanism is the immaterial “force” of the mind.
I think you’ve got the conceptual building blocks for everything from ESP, to karma, to cosmic consciousness, to God. Pure mind, or thought, or value, has real power.
a-ray-in-dilbert-space #495 wrote:
No, this is where the questions start. If we actually had something to work with, we might be able to come up with objective answers on at least some of these questions.
The fact that people who believe in the supernatural will go all over the place when they answer these questions (if they even try) doesn’t necessarily mean the concept itself is incoherent. It probably points to the fact that it’s wrong. There’s no possibility of consensus on details, because other than the general idea, they don’t have anything but their intuitions, guesses, and interpretations of other people’s intuitions and guesses.
Sastra,
Here’s a little hint on telling the difference between effect and affect. Effect starts off with an “ef”, the same as the word efficacious which is what we all know Lydia Pinkham’s Vegetable Compound is in every case. Affect starts with “af” which is an abbreviation for air force.
Hope that helps.