Setting the Stage

Richard Dawkins is an obviously brilliant biologist who has a flare for communication. No matter how much one knows or understands about the issues he discusses, he leaves little room for doubt in the readers mind as to whether they agree with him or not. I personally find his accounts of evolution to be inspiring, to put it mildly, despite his occasional gratuitous “pot shots” at theists which I have usually considered to be unnecessary side tracks from an otherwise persuasive argument.

His attacks seem to be little more than pure straw-man arguments; after all, anybody can produce conclusive arguments against just about anything if they attack a version of their choice and/or creation. This is what I have typically considered Dawkins to be doing. His attacks have at times seemed shallow and overly inflammatory, unlike his understanding of biological evolution. These attacks of his have been circulated far and wide earning him the right to be considered the quintessential atheist of our time. If a book has anything to do with science and religion, his name is sure to be mentioned in it.

Also sure to be mentioned in any account of the relationship between science and religion is what Stephen Gould called the “non-overlapping magisteria.” This is the common response given by most religionists to scientific attacks on religion and was the one which I have always endorsed to a certain extent. The idea behind the non-overlapping magisteria of science and religion is that these two domains simply do not overlap each other as much as Dawkins seems to hope, that is if they overlap at all. Evolution does not directly disprove the existence of any supernatural realm by any stretch of the imagination; it simply seems to leave any suggested supernatural entities a little less engaged in passing concerns than they might have seemed to be in our pre-Darwinian days.

But while considering God to be the creator of the world and all its life forms seems important enough from a religious stand point, the real significance of religion lies not in its account of earth centered astronomy or young earth creationism. The real importance of God and religion lies in the lives of those who are (physically) capable of believing in such, namely us humans. The fact that our species descended from hominids doesn’t say much anything at all to the validity of the Ten Commandments, any claims to eternal rewards or punishments or the resurrection of the Son of God.

Thus there seems to be a separation between the two domains of science and religion: science answering the how’s and leaving the why’s to religion. These are the two magesteria and they do not overlap when defined correctly. Stephen Gould, a very prominent, yet recently lamented, evolutionary biologist from Harvard, gained quite a favorable hearing among religionists by defending (from his non-theistic stand point) a form of this ultimate separation of church and the secular state. Science and religion do not contradict each other because, again when properly defined, they do not interact with each other on any common questions.

Notice that uncomfortable qualifier though, “when properly defined.” We simply can’t walk away from this proposed reconciliation without asking how science and religion should be defined in order for the argument to work. While many religionists anxiously adopt Gould’s stance, or some form of it, as a barricade of sorts against arguments such as Dawkins’, too few have really engaged in the most important part of the argument. (But can we really blame religionists for jumping at the opportunity to ward off not only any modern attacks against religion, but any other “difficulties” which might in the future arise, i.e. cognitive science?)

Science ultimately says nothing about religion, it is suggested, but instead carries on its own enterprises in a totally different room from that in which religion is considered and is therefore totally irrelevant to it. But wait, relevance is a two way street. To the very same extent that science is unable to criticize religion, religion cannot speak about scientific matters. That is the catch. What Gould proposes is that we make religion so small as to not contradict much of anything at all. Thus religion may not be open to criticism by science only on the condition that we mean something very different than most people do when they use the word “religion.”

Thus, while religionists might be able to speak on the “why’s”, they can’t say anything at all about the “how’s.” Well what about the other questions that can be asked such as when, where, who and what, can religion speak on them? Not under the protection of the non-overlapping magesteria. What lies at the root of this separation which Gould proposes between science and religion is the fallacy which David Hume articulated of those who try to derive “ought” from “is.” We can’t derive values or things which “ought to be” from the way things happen to be in the world, at least not in any way that anybody has thought of yet. Thus, while science studies the things of this world, no values can be derived from these findings, no matter what they are.

Fair enough, but here is very point which should bother religionists more than a little: the questions of who, how, when, what and where all have to do with the way things were, are or will be; which is only another name for the domain of science. Religion only dodges the bullets of science so long as they stay off its turf and this means ignoring all of these questions, something which religions simply do not do.

Now it should be kept in mind that science doesn’t necessarily tell religion what boundaries it must or must not have. In fact, Dawkins thrives on the overlap which most all religions insist upon. Of course religion can make claims as to when something happened if they want, just so long as they recognize that there is no longer a non-overlapping magesteria. They can claim that the earth was created about 10,000 years ago if they so choose, but they shouldn’t be surprised when an army of scientists comes along with their truck loads of evidence to demonstrate the falsity of that claim. Thus Gould and Dawkins are simply taking two different approaches to the same advice which they give to religionists: if you know what good for you, you’ll keep out of the territory of science.

Here is how Dawkins put it:

More generally it is completely unrealistic to claim, as Gould and many others do, that religion keeps itself away from science’s turf, restricting itself to morals and values… Religions make existence claims, and this means scientific claims…There is something dishonestly self-serving in the tactic of claiming that all religious beliefs are outside the domain of science. On the one hand, miracle stories and the promise of life after death are used to impress simple people, win converts, and swell congregations. It is precisely their scientific power that gives these stories their popular appeal. But at the same time it is considered below the belt to subject the same stories to the ordinary rigors of scientific criticism: these are religious matters and therefore outside the domain of science. But you cannot have it both ways.

Again, while one can criticize his use of examples, his main point is actually quite solid.

Well what is religion? This question is notoriously complex and can be answered a number of ways depending upon the context in which it is asked. One answer which I have already rejected would be a mere “system of values.” Clearly religion as we know it is far more inclusive than this. Additionally, I am not asking “what is a religion?” but “what is religion in general?” Whatever else it may be, it is at minimum a worldview, a way of viewing and making sense of the world around us. For our particular purposes, I will simply call religion the supernatural worldview, a worldview which maintains not only the existence of things within our universe with which we are not yet familiar, but also the existence of at least one Entity which is neither a part nor product of it and yet is able to influence it in ways which are intrinsically inscrutable.

How does the religious worldview work? Religion takes for granted most questions of ontology, questions concerning existence, and from there proceeds to questions of epistemology, questions regarding knowledge. For example, epistemic questions such as “what is true?” or “how do we know that?” are answered with appeals to ontological assertions such as “whatever God says” or “because God says so.” In other words, we know certain things based upon the nature of the way things are. It is hardly difficult to see how this system can easy fall into circular reasoning, leaving appeals to mystery as its only escape.

Science can also be seen as a worldview, though one very different from the religious one. For starters, science is by its very nature naturalistic, naturalism being defined by Paul Draper as “the hypothesis that the physical universe is a ‘closed system’ in the sense that nothing that is neither a part nor a product of it can affect it. So naturalism entails the nonexistence of all supernatural beings, including the theistic God.”

There is a difference, many will note, between methodological naturalism, the acting like naturalism is true as the practicing scientist must in order to discover more truth, and metaphysical naturalism as defined by Draper. This is true, but as we will soon see, the only escape for the scientist from metaphysical naturalism is by an appeal to some other worldview, for methodological naturalism simply doesn’t permit such a jump from methodological to metaphysical naturalism on its terms.

Whereas religion bases its epistemic questions in ontological assertions, answering what we know it terms of the way things are, science takes the opposite route. Questions regarding “what exists?” are answered by appeals to how we can or do know. Of course questions regarding how we really know can be raised against the scientific worldview, but these questions are far less incriminating than the ones which the religious worldview begs. Thus, science by its very nature forbids any talk of any unknowable, supernatural realm. It’s not that science directly proves supernatural claims wrong, for again, they are unknowable, but rather science simply does not acknowledge such phenomena.

While it is common practice, especially among the religious, to claim that science and religion are not necessarily exclusive to one another, we simply must confess that the naturalistic and super naturalistic world view are in direct conflict with one another. If one defines religion and science in a different way than I have then I suppose that one can hold both worldviews to a certain extent, but I will argue that doing so shortchanges and compromises both worldviews.

For example, we see many religionists practicing science. These people, while using the scientific method in their work do not see the scientific method as being good enough to apply to their actual worldview. They see that methodological naturalism has great benefits, but also think that in the end its simply not as good as the method, whatever it may be, which allows them to resist the conclusion of metaphysical naturalism. Thus we have religionists who believe in and study evolution based on the evidence we have amounted in its favor, but in the end fall back to a non-scientific (not necessarily anti-scientific) view of the world. For them, ontology still precedes epistemology.

The difference between these two worldviews should not be underestimated for the consequences which result from basing ones epistemic claims in ontological ones rather than the other way around are far reaching and myriad. We should take a little bit of time to at least mention some of these differences using Francis Bacon’s Novum Organum as an illustration.

In 1620 Francis Bacon published the Novum Organum, a book which basically amounted to a declaration of bankruptcy in the Aristotelian Organon. While most of Bacon’s contemporaries considered popular methods to be sure and steadfast, having weathered the test of time, Bacon found these methods to be sorely lacking. Pointing to the endless philosophical disputes, which existed in every area of human knowledge, not excluding religion, he in effect declared, “Let all received knowledge be set at naught. Let us begin again.”

Thus, while every student at the time was studying Aristotle’s Organum as their primary text, Bacon burst onto the scene with his Novum Organum, the New Organon, meant to replace the “old” one, an ambitious project to say the least. As we will see, Bacon’s criticisms, which are considered by many the beginnings of the scientific method, indict many of the consequences which usually follow from the religious method.

The first difference between the religious and scientific worldviews lays in the nature and value of certain epistemic claims. Religious claims to knowledge are almost entirely based on authority, believing something because somebody else says so. We know that God exists because the Bible/Prophet says so. We know the Bible/Prophet is right on this matter because God says so. And round and round in a logical circle we go.

Science, on the other hand, is based primarily upon experience and observation. We know that tables exist because not only I but anybody else who chooses to look observes them to exist. We know that Newton’s laws of conservation are good approximations of motion because we observe them to be so. Bacon made such a great name for himself in declaring authority to be insufficient. Regardless of who said it, be it Plato, Aristotle or Aquinas, “by far the best proof is experience.”

Since religion places so many eggs in the basket of authority, there is a significant amount of trust which must also be required of its adherents. Certain scriptural passages come to mind which say “Doubt not…” or “He who believeth not…”, passages which tend toward and often amount to claims of infallibility.

Bacon’s method, however, placed an immense amount of emphasis in the virtue of doubt: “If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts he shall end in certainties.” The scientist doesn’t care who said what or how many people said it, if it can’t be verified by any given person then there will always be an element of doubt.

Religion, however, has often tried to endorse this policy of systematic doubt as well saying that all believers have equal access to the divine, but unfortunately excuses have always been more than available to explain why we simply don’t observe an equal access to the divine. According to various forms of religion, one must be a particular gender (male), be attracted to a particular gender (female or none at all), be of a particular ethnicity (Jewish or white), live during a particular time (2,000 years ago for Christians and 200 years ago for Mormons), obey particular practices, have proper motives as well as proper beliefs and so on in order to “qualify” for epistemic justification. This can hardly be considered the same thing as what Bacon was proposing.

Given that religion tends to distance it adherents from epistemic justification, there will also tend to be a “hand’s off” attitude toward many questions which may arise in their minds. What came before God? Saint Augustine’s answer was “Preparing a hell for people who ask foolish questions.” We noted earlier that the question that religion is supposed to have exclusive rights to is “why?” Nevertheless, this is the very question which is most discouraged. Why would God make the earth look old and give the appearance of evolution? Why would his infallible prophets teach that the earth is the center of the universe? Why does God say that some things are morally wrong while others are morally good? Why does God’s mind seem to change on so many of these matters? Why does God seem to rather arbitrarily favor some people over others? Why doesn’t God give us more evidence of His existence? And so on.

Bacon’s doctrine was instead one of curiosity: “Whatever deserves to exist deserves to be known.” Nothing is out of bounds. Not human origins, human nature, human cognition or even human values.

Sometimes, however, religion does try to engage people with a form of reason, usually, but not always, in order to defend claims already made rather than to establish new truths. This has now branched into a rather large field generally called apologetics. Consider the still famous reasoning of the Archdeacon William Paley: If you find a beautiful watch on the beach we automatically assume that intelligence designed it. What are we to assume when we observe the vast amounts of clear design in the biological world? This is a blatant appeal to intuition which I shall define as reason devoid of rigor.

Religion asserts, “We simply can’t account for X by any way other than God, therefore God did it,” taking the absence of evidence for a current naturalistic explanation as evidence for the absence of a possible naturalistic explanation. Science, however, tells us to simply think harder on the matter. We cannot fully accept anything until we simply have absolutely no way around it, and how often does that happen?

In response to the Paley’s watch argument the scientist simply maintains that we believe that an intelligent designer built the watch and this because that is the only way we have ever observed watches coming into existence. Similarly, the only way we have ever seen a remarkably well designed animal come into existence was not by some intelligent designer but by birth from its parents. Who created the frog? It’s parents, not some elusive designer.

Again, whereas Religion frequently makes strong appeals to human intuition, science insists upon a certain amount of logical rigor. Introducing rigor into religion, on the other hand, has usually tended toward absurdity, dissatisfaction or even disaffection.

As noted earlier, religion bases its epistemic claims in authority; however I should have also mentioned that there are two forms of authority: expertise and position. Here is perhaps the best example of the difference between basing epistemic claims in ontological assertions and the other way around. Religion claims authority by position, “we should listen to this person because he is….” the priest, the pope, the king, the president, the prophet, the son of God or God himself. Or “we should not listen to this person because they are…” fill in the blank with any of those “qualifications” which I mentioned earlier, a girl, a heathen, a sinner, a sign seeker and so on.

Science, however, does rely upon a certain amount of authority of expertise in order to save vast amounts of time and not require every person to have to reinvent the wheel so to speak. The scientists claim is “we should tentatively listen to this person because he knows…” Notice the very important difference.

Many religionists, however, might want to call their ultimate epistemic claims authoritative by expertise as well, after all, God knows everything and that’s why we should accept His claims. Nevertheless, this authority is qualitatively different than that claimed by scientists. For starters, this Authority is always hidden from us. He is unable to give His own testimony, instead relying upon the authority of position granted to the chosen few. Secondly and similarly, these claims to expertise are shrouded in mystery. No attempts are made, nor can they be, to verify this Expert’s methods. Whereas the verifiable expertise of the scientist is ultimately based in experience, the unverifiable expertise of religion is filtered through the illegitimate authority of position and is ultimately shrouded in impenetrable mystery.

This brings us to another difference between the two world views, that of falsification. Many critics of evolution claim that it isn’t really science since it doesn’t make any predictions about the future which can be falsified. This is patently false in every way and is based in an incorrect understanding of Popperian falsification. The hypothetico-deductive method of science isn’t based upon predicting the future.

It is based in predicting future observations of the past, present or future. For instance, when Darwin proposed his theory of evolution by natural selection, his ideas could have been falsified by a demonstration that: the earth wasn’t very old, there were no particular patterns in the distribution of taxa, the fossils were scattered in a relatively random way, DNA sequences didn’t match with predicted evolutionary paths, mathematical evolutionary models didn’t even come close to modeling genes pools, evolutionary algorithms weren’t able to produce what in retrospect appeared to be “irreducible complexity” in computer simulation and so forth.

A less inspiring account of human knowledge refuting falsification would be that of the religionists. The Judeo-Christian tradition has been hoping for and expecting the rapture to be absolutely imminent for about 2,500 years now. Official predictions have been made by OT prophets and NT Apostles, even Jesus himself saying that it would happen in his generation and all have turned out wrong. It didn’t come in Old Testament times as many of its authors had hoped. It didn’t come in New Testament times and Jesus and Paul had hoped. It didn’t come in the 19th century as more than a few American religious sects, including more than one president of the Mormon Church had expected. Yet, in spite of this dismal track record, these predictions are seen as being infallibly true so long as we give these passages a little ad hoc tweak.

All things said, there is simply no objective, first hand accounts of predictions, which were recorded before the fact, coming true to any degree greater than that of the typical psychic. Maybe its time that these people actually applied their pseudo-scientific criticisms of falsification to their own epistemic claims.

The most practical difference which can be seen in the two world views will be that of progression versus conservatism. As noted, Bacon rebelled against the “old” Organon saying that despite its having weathered the test of time, it simply wasn’t going anywhere. It simply wasn’t producing any fruit worth mention. He claimed, “It is an unsound fancy to think that things that have never been done can be done except by methods never tried.” Can we really deny that this is a more than somewhat accurate definition of religion in general?

As to the fruits of the scientific method, Bacon and Descartes’ thinking led directly to what was by far humanities greatest epistemic achievement at its time, Newtonian mechanics. The dark ages were dark, not due to the popular acceptance of false religious doctrines as many Christians and Mormons now claim, but due to the acceptance of the religious worldview in general. As soon as that worldview was overthrown, the flood gates of knowledge were opened up, a trend which is still accelerating. Thus, while science is continually striving toward the future, religion is continually both looking and clinging to the past due to its seemingly unfounded trust in less than fallible past authorities.

It should be noted, if only out of honesty, that science does not prove the inexistence of God, not directly anyways. Bertrand Russell remarked:

Many orthodox people speak as though it were the business of skeptics to disprove received dogmas rather than of dogmatists to prove them. This is, of course, a mistake. If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time.

That said, however, science does disprove many versions of God. The God that created animals separately and singly about 10,000 years ago never existed. The God that has a sacred and infallible book which teaches that scenario never existed either. The Omnipotent and Omni benevolent God which created a whole world chalk full of both human and natural evil never existed. The God who created the sun and stars to revolve around the earth never did exist, nor did the God who flooded the entire earth about 5,000 years ago. The God who would bring in the rapture 2,500 years ago never existed, nor did the one who would bring it in 2,000 years, nor the one which would bring it in about 100 years ago and so on. Science as a worldview is not silent upon these matters.

The two worldviews are fundamentally different, and a person cannot really hold both at the same time, not without assuming that one is actually subject to the other which is simply another way of only holding one of the two. Which makes more sense, to interpret our experiences in terms of what people with less experience and fewer interpretive options said long ago, or to interpret what people with less experience and fewer interpretive options said long ago in terms of our richer modern understanding? When we hear claims made in the world should we believe them based upon who said them, or upon who observed them?

As Russell said, it is not the responsibility of science to somehow disprove every claim that humanity has offered over its long history. The burden of proof is on those who put forth the claims to establish the tenability of such. We are not born into the world believing in a supernatural agent or in evolution. Instead we are instructed according to the methods and principles of a particular worldview. Which one is better and has produced a more successful account of the world around us?

It is in this light that we can better understand and appreciate some of Dawkins’ criticisms of religion:

A universe with a supernatural presence would be a fundamentally and qualitatively different kind of universe from one without. The difference is, inescapably, a scientific difference.The total amount of suffering per year in the natural world is beyond all decent contemplation. During the minute that it takes me to compose this sentence, thousands of animals are being eaten alive, many others are running for their lives, whimpering with fear, others are slowly being devoured from within by rasping parasites, thousands of all kinds are dying of starvation, thirst, and disease. It must be so. If there ever is a time of plenty, this very fact will automatically lead to an increase in the population until the natural state of starvation and misery is restored.
In a universe of electrons and selfish genes, blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won’t find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference.It really comes down to parsimony, economy of explanation. It is possible that you car engine is driven by psychological energy, but if it looks like a petrol engine, smells like a petrol engine, and performs exactly as well as a petrol engine, the sensible working hypothesis is that it is a petrol engine.

Dawkins is a scientist speaking as one who has fully adopted science as the best way of understanding the world. If there was a God we could predict the world to be one way. If there was no such God then we could predict the world to be another way. Which way do we observe the world to be? This is a methodologically naturalistic, in other words scientific, criticism of religion which is completely valid. Compare it to the criticism which religion mounts against science: God says they are wrong, therefore they are wrong. Which worldview seems more productive?

One of the more shallow arguments put forth for the existence of God would be that of Pascal’s wager. It should be noted that Pascal did not intend his argument to be one for God’s existence, but this has not stopped many for using it this way. What Pascal basically said was that there are really four possibilities when we get down to it:

1) God exists and I believe in Him: this leads to eternal life and rewards.
2) God exists and I don’t believe in Him: this leads to eternal damnation.
3) God does not exist and I believe in Him: nothing terribly important happens.
4) God does not exist and I don’t believe in Him: nothing terribly important happens.

Thus the only time I can really guarantee that nothing bad happens to me and that something really good might happen to me is by believing in God.

This is a terrible argument, as more than one person has noted. First of all, what if I simply added the notions of rewards for belief and punishments for disbelief to Russell’s cosmic teapot? Does that mean that I should believe in it too? Does this mean that I should believe in every single idea that any person either has or could couple with these eternal promises? What if some ideas have punishments for believing them and rewards for disbelieving them, how will I be able to tell the difference for sure and what should I believe about them? In other words, Pascal’s argument needs A LOT more elaboration for it to mean anything at all.

It should also be pointed out that these rewards and punishments are entirely hypothetical. We have no evidence whatsoever to accept that certain beliefs will lead to heaven or hell. The only existence which we do have evidence for is this one, the one which Pascal seems to not place very much importance upon due to its being so short in comparison with the hypothetical one, but this doesn’t change the fact that latter is hypothetical. We simply cannot base our entire known existence around hypotheses for which there are no good reasons to believe.

This brings to mind the court trial envisioned by Daniel Dennett:

You are sightseeing with a loved one in a foreign land, and your loved one is brutally murdered in front of your eyes. At the trial it turns out that in this land friends of the accused may be called as witnesses for the defense, testifying about their faith in his innocence. You watch the parade of his moist-eyed friends, obviously sincere, proudly proclaiming their undying faith in the innocence of the man you saw commit the terrible deed. The judge listens intently and respectfully, obviously more moved by this outpouring than by all the evidence presented by the prosecution. Is this not a nightmare? Would you be willing to live in such a land? … I know it passes in polite company to let people have it both ways, and under most circumstances I wholeheartedly cooperate with this benign arrangement. But we’re seriously trying to get at the truth here, and if you think that this common but unspoken understanding about faith is anything better than socially useful obfuscation to avoid mutual embarrassment and loss of face, you have either seen much more deeply into this issue than any philosopher ever has (for none has ever come up with a good defense of this) or you are kidding yourself.

Would you honestly sentence a man to life in prison based on a feeling? Based on an obvious appeal to intuition and without a shred of evidence? Would you be able to accept somebody else sentencing YOU to prison based on such reasoning or better said lack thereof? If you answered “no” to all of these then why would you ever sentence yourself to a life in a prison of superstition and ignorance based on these same reasons? It simply doesn’t make any sense.